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MRS. SIDDONS. 



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Already published : 

George Eliot. By Miss Blind. 
Emily Bronte. By Miss Robinson. 
George Sand. By Miss Thomas. 
Mary Lamb. By Mrs. Gilchrist. 
Margaret Fuller. By Julia Ward Howe. 
Maria Edgeworth. By Miss Zimmern. 
Elizabeth Fry. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman. 
The Countess of Albany. By Vernon Lee. 
Mary Wollstonecraft. By Mrs. E. R. Pennell. 
Harriet Martineau. By Mrs. F. Fenwick Miller. 
Rachel. By Mrs. Nina A. Kennard. 
Madame Roland. By Mathilde Blind. 
Susanna Wesley. By Eliza Clarke. 
Margaret of Angouleme. By Miss Robinson. 
Mrs. Siddons. By Mrs. Nina A. Kennard. 




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MRS. SIDDONS. 



BY 



NINA A. KENNARD. 



3 



£ 



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BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1887. 



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Copyright, 1887, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



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University Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PREFACE. 



In spite of Mrs. Siddons's professed shrinking from 
the celebrity that biographers would confer upon 
her, and her preference for the ' ' still small voice of 
tender relatives and estimable friends," we know 
that she bequeathed her Memoranda, Letters, and 
Diary to the poet Campbell, — an intimate friend 
during her latter years, — with a request that he 
would prepare them for publication. How, with the 
ample material at his command, Campbell wrote so 
bad a life, it is difficult to conceive. He seemed 
conscious himself that he was not doing justice to 
his subject. The task of finishing it weighed on 
him like a nightmare. To secure himself from in- 
terruption he would fix a placard on the door of 
his chambers announcing that " Mr. Campbell was 
engaged with the biography of Mrs. Siddons, and 
was not to be disturbed." 

Though performing the task unwillingly, he stub- 
bornly refused to allow any one else to attempt it. 
When Mrs. Jameson contemplated writing a life of 
the great actress he was most indignant, and ex- 
pressed himself as unable to understand how Mrs. 
Combe (Cecilia Siddons) could patronize a life of 
her mother by Mrs. Jameson, knowing that he had 
been appointed the biographer. 



v i PREFACE. 

Boaden's account of Mrs. Siddons is sketchy and 
meagre, and his style, if possible, more pedantic 
and ponderous than Campbell's. Crabb Robinson 
declared it to be u one of the most worthless books 
of biographj' in existence." 

In writing an account of a woman like Mrs. Sid- 
dons, or, indeed, of any one whose life has been 
passed entirely before the public, it is necessary to 
divest the character as much as possible of the 
legendary traditions adhering to it. It must be 
brought down into the regions of ordinarj- life, and 
the only way to accomplish this is to transcribe 
her actual words and expressions written without 
thought of publication. We must therefore ask our 
readers to forgive us for quoting so many of her 
letters in full. When we attempt to shorten or in- 
terpolate, all their easy charm and freshness seems 
to evaporate. 

Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his Lives of the Kembles, 
has incorporated Mrs. Siddons's history with that of 
her brother, John Kemble, and written by far the 
best biographj T yet done of the great actress. To 
him we must express our deep obligation, and almost 
our contrition, for venturing to treat a subject al- 
ready so ably handled in his interesting volumes. 
We must also express our gratitude to Mr. Alfred 
Morrison and Mr. Thibaudeau for allowing us to 
make use of the valuable documents contained in 
the Morrison collection of autograph letters. 

NINA A. KENNARD. 
February, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



Chap. Page. 

I. — Parentage and Childhood . , i 

II. — Marriage 24 

III. — " Davey " 44 

IV.— Work .63 

V. — Success . : . . * . . 88 

VI. — Dublin and Edinburgh . . .107 

VII. — Clouds 126 

VIII. — Lady Macbeth . . . . 152 

IX. — Friends . . . . - . 172 

X. — 1782 to 1798 197 

XI. — Sheridan . . . . . 227 

XII. — Hermione 245 

XIII. — Sorrows 266 

XIV. — Westbourne Farm . . . . 284 

XV. — Retirement 315 

XVI.— Old Age 336 



MRS. SIDDONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 

The lax morality prevailing in England at the 
time of the Restoration, produced a literary and 
dramatic school of art suited to the taste of the 
public. Congreve wrote " Love for Love," and 
coolly remarked, when accused of immorality, 
" that, if it were an immodest play, he was 
incapable of writing a modest one." 

The reaction from the almost overstrained 
energy and chivalry of the Elizabethan age, 
which a century of Stuart rule effected in the 
minds of Englishmen, had brought them thus 
low. Manners were looked upon as better than 
morals. Scepticism as better than belief, as 
well when it concerned the tenets of the Bible 
as the honor of their neighbors' wives. 

The stage — especially when the public has no 
other intellectual outlet — is invariably the test 
I 



2 MRS. SID DONS. 

by which we can discover the moral condition of 
a country. When that condition is unnatural 
and feverish, proportionally artificial and stim- 
ulating must be the mental food presented to it, 
until the audience gradually becomes incapable 
of digesting any other. The want at the end of 
the seventeenth century produced the supply. 
A drama arose which was polished, dainty, fin- 
ished in detail, but from the stage of which vir- 
tue was excluded like a poor relation, who, clad 
in fustian, and shod with hob-nail boots, is not 
supposed to be fit company for profligate gentle- 
men in gold-embroidered coats and lace ruffles. 
Shakespeare was too strong food for the 
digestive capacities of an age whose poets pre- 
ferred falsehood to truth. Pepys speaks of 
Henry VIII. as a simple thing made up "of a 
great many patches." The Tempest, he thinks, 
" has no great art, but yet good above ordinary 
plays." "Othello" was to him "amean thing," 
compared to the last new comedy. He is good 
enough, however, to allow that he liked or dis- 
liked " Macbeth," according to the humor of the 
hour, but there was a "divertissement" in it, 
which struck him as being a droll thing in 
tragedy. 

The fiery energy of Pitt was needed to gal- 
vanise the paralysed enthusiasm, the fanatical 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 3 

earnestness of John Wesley was needed to 
arouse the, deadened moral sense of England. 
Religion and patriotism come first as important 
factors in the education of a people, but they 
are closely followed by poetry and the drama. 
If Pitt and Wesley did much to elevate the 
political and religious tone, as much was done 
to elevate the literary and dramatic by Samuel 
Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick, and 
Sarah Siddons. 

Our readers may be inclined to think we exag- 
gerate the importance of the stage, by thus 
classing poets and players together ; but if we 
wish to appreciate the influence wielded by 
players a hundred years ago, we have but to 
examine the careers of these last two great 
artists ; and if we wish to appreciate the moral 
reform effected, we have but to turn to a list of 
the plays in vogue at the time of the Restoration 
and the plays in vogue twenty years after Gar- 
rick had been acting, and ten years after Sarah 
Siddons' first appearance. 

The reaction came, as do all reactions, with 
too great intensity ; vice was not only punished 
in its own person, but the sins of the father 
were visited on the children, with a harshness 
almost Semitic. Through the fine-spun senti- 
ment of "The Fatal Marriage," and the melo- 



4 MA'S. SID DONS. 

dramatic heroism of "The Grecian Daughter," 
two of Mrs. Siddons' greatest parts, we trace 
the high moral tone that cleared away eventually 
the foul and noisome atmosphere hanging over 
the theatrical world. Gloomy morality and dra- 
matic pathos paved the way for the return of the 
" Winter's Tale," and " Hamlet." 

Justly are the memories of David Garrick and 
Sarah Siddons revered by Englishmen, not only 
because they devoted their genius to the rein- 
statement of England's greatest dramatist, but 
that, also, by their strict adherence to an almost 
rigid decorum in public behavior, and private 
life, they raised a profession that had hitherto 
been despised and looked upon as one unbefit- 
ting a modest woman, or an honorable man, into 
a position of respectability and consideration. 

That these two great artists had faults, who 
can wonder ? No reformation was ever yet ac- 
complished by the flaccid-minded ones, and we 
must remember that many of the stories told of 
his vanity and meanness and her hardness and 
reserve, were circulated by their enemies on and 
off the stage, because of their very rigidity and 
morality. In spite, however, of some passing 
clouds, never was there a career so admired, a 
personality so adored in public life, as that of 
Mrs. Siddons. Whenever she appeared, enthu- 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 5 

siastic applause rang through the house, not only 
on account of her pre-eminent genius, but be- 
cause of her untarnished private character. Step 
by step we propose to trace the career of this 
wonderful woman, who, dowered with singular 
beauty and genius, and placed amid all the 
temptations of a profession in which so few of 
her sex remain pure, has shown an example of 
unswerving rectitude and religious fervor, unu- 
sual in any walk of life, keeping her to the last a 
"great simple being," direct and truthful, noble 
and industrious. She had faults, as we have 
said, but they were so far outbalanced by her 
virtues that we can well afford to forgive them ; 
always remembering that, though only the 
daughter of a strolling actor, born amidst the 
lowliest surroundings, she conceived an ideal of 
her art which enabled her to raise the stage of 
her country, from consisting simply in the de- 
lineation of the coarsest gallantry, into a source 
of the highest moral and artistic instruction. 

Far from the strife of political parties or the 
vagaries of fashionable dramatists, both she and 
Garrick, with whose name we have coupled hers, 
were born in the romantic country of Wales : he 
at Hereford ; she in the small town of Brecon, 
by the shores of the river Usk. The following 
copy of her certificate of baptism, from the 



6 MRS. SIDDONS. 

register-book in St. Mary's, Brecon, is given in 
the "Gentleman's Magazine," in 1826: "Bap- 
tism, 1755, July 14th, Sarah, daughter of George 
Kemble, a commedian (sic), and Sarah, his wife, 
was baptised. Thomas Bevan, curate." Her 
father's name was "Roger," not " George," as 
given above. The young couple's theatrical 
wanderings happened to bring them, at the time 
of Mrs. Kemble's confinement, to the little 
Welsh town, where they had put up in the High 
Street at a public-house familiarly called " The 
Shoulder of Mutton." In 1755 the inn was a 
picturesque gable-fronted old house, with pro- 
jecting upper story, exhibiting as sign-board a 
large shoulder of mutton. It was much fre- 
quented by the farmers on market-day for its good 
ale and its legs of mutton, which might regu- 
larly in those days be seen roasting before the 
kitchen fire, on a spit turned by a dog in a wheel. 
Brecon is not without dramatic and historic 
interest, and, as Mrs. Siddons afterwards was 
fond of pointing out, is several times mentioned 
by Shakespeare. Buckingham, in Richard III., 
says : 

Oh ! let me think on Hastings, and begone 
To Brecon whilst my fearful head is on. 

Sir Hugh Evans also, that " remnant of Welsh 
flannel," in the " Merry Wives of Windsor," was 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. / 

curate of the priory of Brecon in the days of Queen 
Elizabeth ; and from the intimacy which existed 
between Shakespeare and the priors of the 
priory, Campbell tells us, " an idea prevails that 
he frequently visited them at their residence in 
Brecon, and that he not only availed himself of 
the whimsicalities of old Sir Hugh, but that he was 
indebted for much of the romantic setting of the 
"Midsummer Night's Dream" to the surround- 
ing scenery, where Puck and his fairy compan- 
ions are familiar household words, one of the 
glens in the neighborhood being named Cwm 
Pwca, or the Valley of Puck." Be this as it may, 
we cannot wonder at Mrs. Siddons' desire to con- 
nect the places that played important parts in 
her fortunes with the name of the great poet 
whom she honored so devotedly and so well. 

Roger Kemble, father of the little girl, was 
the manager of a strolling company of actors, 
his theatrical " circuit " including the counties 
of Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwick- 
shire. He was born in Hereford in the year 
1 72 1, and it was said that he began life as a 
" barber." John Kemble, when convivial, would 
sometimes allude to this fact; but, indeed, in 
those days many actors are said to have been 
" barbers," the fact being that, when strolling, 
it was sometimes found convenient for one of 



8 MRS. SIDDONS. 

the company to combine the two professions. 
He was a Roman Catholic, and was fond of 
tracing his descent from an old English family, 
claiming as ancestors a Captain Kemble, who 
fought at Worcester in the camp of the Stuarts, 
and a Father Kemble, who died for the faith a 
few years later. 

Her mother was a Miss Ward, daughter also 
of an actor and manager of a strolling company. 
Peg Woffington, when only fifteen, played at his 
theatre in Auniger Street, until Mr. Ward's 
strait-laced severity drove the wild young Irish 
girl away. The Wards seem, indeed, to have 
been almost Methodistical in their strict reli- 
gious views. The following inscription may be 
seen on their tomb at Leominster : 

Here, waiting for the Saviour's great assize, 
And hoping through his merits hence to rise 
In glorious mode, in this dark closet lies 

John Ward, Gent., 

Who died Oct. 30th, 1773, aged 69 years. 

Also 

Sarah his Wife, 

Who died Jan. 30th, 1786, aged 75 years. 

Mrs. Siddonswas, therefore, 31 before her grand- 
mother died. Tough, vigorous races, both Kem- 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 9 

bles and Wards, full of religion and prejudices, 
which they kept intact until they died. On one 
side we see the great actress inherited Irish 
blood. John Ward was an Irishman, and Sally, 
his daughter, was born in Clonmel. Roger 
Kemble, a member of Ward's company, aided 
by his good looks, courteous manners, and fine 
black eyes, won the heart of Sally Ward. The 
father strongly objected to the match ; but find- 
ing opposition of no avail, at last reluctantly con- 
sented, making the hackneyed joke — afterwards 
attributed to Roger Kemble himself, on the 
occasion of Sarah's marriage with Siddons — that 
" he wished her not to become the wife of an 
actor, and she had certainly complied with his 
request." 

The young couple were married at Cirencester 
in the year 1753. Sarah was their first child. 
John Philip, the second, was born two years 
after his sister, at Prescott in Lancashire. They 
had ten brothers and sisters, and, although all 
of them — except those who died in very early 
youth — went on the stage, none reached the pre- 
eminence of the two eldest. They were an 
intelligent, industrious family, blossoming into 
genius in one member and very remarkable tal- 
ent in another. As Roger Kemble was a Cath- 
olic and his wife a Protestant, it was agreed that 



10 MRS. SID DO AS. 

the girls were to be brought up in the mother's 
faith, the boys in their father's. 

The accounts given us of Mrs. Siddons' child- 
hood are meagre ; but, from numerous memoirs 
and racy theatrical reminiscences, we can see 
what the life of the travelling actor in England a 
hundred years ago was like, with all its accom- 
paniments of squalor and humiliation. In these 
days, when actors and actresses of no very great 
eminence are whirled about in first-class express 
carriages or in special trains from place to place, 
it is difficult, in spite of accurate information, to 
realize the hardships attending the profession 
then. The travelling from town to town in all 
weathers, in carts little better than those con 
stituting a gipsy caravan ; the parading through 
the streets, offering play-bills and puffs. A res- 
ident of Warwick — Walter Whiter, the commen- 
tator on Shakespeare — when Mrs. Siddons had 

11 become known all the world over," recalled as 
one of the sights of his boyhood in the town, the 
daylight procession of old Roger Kemble's com- 
pany, advertising and giving a foretaste of the 
evening's entertainment. A little girl, the fu- 
ture Queen of Tragedy, marched with them in 
white and spangles, her train held by a hand- 
some boy in black velvet, John Philip Kemble, 
of the "all hail hereafter." 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. II 

It is almost impossible to conceive the ignominy 
the company was subjected to, when either the 
mayor of the town — which was often the case — 
had forbidden theatrical representation, or when, 
owing to the pranks of some rowdy members of 
the troupe, the feeling of the inhabitants was 
aroused against them collectively, and they were 
obliged to cringe and supplicate for a renewal of 
the favor of the changeable and narrow-minded 
provincials. 

Enough of the Puritan spirit still remained to 
induce Government to frequently place restric- 
tions on the representations of the " Servants of 
Belial.'' A story is told of the Kemble com- 
pany evading the tax on unlicensed houses, 
introduced by Sir Robert Walpole, by selling 
tooth-powder at a shilling a box, and giving the 
ticket; a proceeding which reminds one of the 
old smuggling trick of selling a sham sack of 
corn, and making a present of the keg of brandy 
placed within it. 

The representations of these strolling actors, 
Fitzgerald tells us, took place sometimes in a 
coach-house or barn, or sometimes in a room of 
an inn ; even the open inn-yard, with its galleries 
running round, was now and then converted into 
a theatre. All sorts of old clothes and decora- 
tions were borrowed, a few candles stuck in bot- 



12 MRS. SIDDONS. 

ties in front, and then the play began. Very 
often the proceeds did not cover expenses, and 
either debts were made or the owner of the inn 
let them go scot-free in consideration of the 
amusement they had afforded his guests. 

The shifts and tribulations, related later by 
the Kembles themselves, seem almost incredi- 
ble. Stephen Kemble, the wittiest of the fam- 
ily, described with great humor a season of pri- 
vation in a wretched village, where the unfortu- 
nate actors could not muster a farthing, and were 
in consequence dunned and abused by their land- 
ladies. To avoid their persecution he lay in bed 
two days, suffering the pangs of hunger, and 
then was obliged to take refuge in a distant tur- 
nip field, where he persuaded a fellow-actor to 
accompany him by boasting of the hospitality 
and size of the establishment. 

In one town the theatre was said to have been 
built, the stage in Sussex, the audience in Kent, 
the two being divided by a ditch, so as to enable 
the players to evade their bailiffs by escaping 
into another county. There is a certain humor 
and tragedy running through all these theatrical 
histories, that makes us laugh at one moment at 
the comical incidents related, and makes us sad 
the next to think of men of talent — often men of 
genius — being subjected to such degradation. 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 1 3 

It is difficult to understand how Sarah and 
John Kemble can have emerged from it so un- 
tainted by its associations, and so far above its 
social and artistic aims and ideals ; or how their 
stately manners and stern ideas of morality and 
decorum can have been fostered in such an at- 
mosphere. In blaming them, perhaps, later, for 
what their detractors called their " closeness " 
about money matters, we must remember that 
the years of suffering and privation they had 
been through, and the very laxity they saw 
around them, was likely to crystalize strong 
natures like theirs into hardness and rigidity, 
exaggerating, perhaps, their ideas of theatrical 
dignity and self-respect. 

There can be no doubt, in spite of all its draw- 
backs, that, from a professional point of view, 
the Bohemian existence of the strolling come- 
dian was a valuable discipline for artistic per- 
ception. The intimate communion in which all 
lived together, gave much more chance of ex- 
pansion to rising genius than the artificial 
barriers now erected between the leader of a com- 
pany and his subordinates. Not only was the 
freemasonry existing between underling and su- 
perior invaluable, but also the course of proba- 
tion before country audiences, who, uninfluenced 
by prestige or fashion, spoke their mind without 



14 MRS. SID DONS. 

reserve. Young recruits, who arrived ignorant 
and raw, thus obtained the necessary ease of de- 
portment and knowledge of stage effects, unin- 
fluenced by preconceived ideas. The very fact, 
also, of so much depending on the individual ex- 
cellence of the actor, independently of scenery 
and accessories, was a valuable stimulus. His 
expression, his action, had to tell the story. 

In passing his earliest years upon the stage, 
the strolling actor obtained a power of identifi- 
cation with theatrical representation only to be 
thus acquired. The atmosphere he breathed 
from his earliest years was dramatic. When 
quite a child, Sarah Kemble was announced as 
an " Infant phenomenon," at an entertainment 
the company gave. As she appeared, some con- 
fusion arose in the gallery which overpowered 
all her attempts. Her mother immediately led 
her down to the footlights, and made her recite 
the fable of "The Boys and Frogs," which at 
once lulled the tumult and restored good humor. 
Thus early was the actress taught to dominate 
her audience, an art that stood her in good stead 
in after life. 

Besides this early theatrical training, Sarah 
received as good an education in the ordinary 
rudiments of learning as it was possible for her 
energetic mother to obtain for her. Mrs. Kem- 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 1 5 

ble sent her child to respectable day schools, we 
are told, in the country towns to which their va- 
rious wanderings brought the troupe. At Wor- 
cester, a schoolmistress of the name of Harris 
received her among her pupils at Thornloe 
House, refusing to accept any payment. An 
old lady, living not long ago, recalled perfectly 
the contempt of the young girls in the estab- 
lishment for the "play actors' daughter," until, 
some private theatricals being set on foot, her 
histrionic taste and experience made her services 
extremely valuable. She won universal popu- 
larity by exhibiting a device for imitating a 
"sack back" with thick sugar-loaf paper pro- 
cured from the grocer. But this education must 
have been desultory, for Roger Kemble could 
not afford to dispense with the girl's assistance. 
Besides the appearance mentioned above, we 
hear of her acting as a child, in a barn at the 
back of the " Old Bell Inn," at Stourbridge, 
Worcestershire, when some officers quartered in 
the neighbourhood gave their services. It is 
said that she burst into laughter at the most 
tragic moment, and inflamed to fury the military 
tragedian who acted with her. The play was 
"The Grecian Daughter." Another tradition 
tells us that her first appearance in a regular five- 
act piece was as Leonora in "The Padlock." 



1 6 MRS. SIDDONS. 

A play-bill of one of these early performances 
was found not long ago, pasted on a brick wall 
in a shoemaker's shop, in one of the country 
towns of the Kemble circuit. 

Campbell tells that Roger Kemble determined 
not to allow his children to follow his vocation ; 
we think, however, this statement must be brack- 
eted with the legend of the ancestor at the battle 
of Worcester, for we find him, as we have seen, 
making Sarah appear when almost a baby, and 
taking John away from a day school at Worces- 
ter, while still in frock and pinafores, to act in 
Havard's tragedy of " Charles the First." The 
characters were thus cast : James, Duke of 
Richmond, by Mr. Siddons, who was now an ac- 
tor in Kemble's company ; James, Duke of York, 
by Master John Kemble, who was then eleven 
years old : the young princess by Miss Kemble, 
then about thirteen ; Lady Fairfax, by Mrs. Kem- 
ble. Singing between the acts by Mr. Fowler 
and Miss Kemble. In the April following, we 
again find " Mr. Kemble's company of Comedi- 
ans" appearing in "a celebrated comedy," called 
"The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island," with 
all the scenery, machinery, music, monsters, 
and the decorations proper to be given, entirely 
new. " The performance will open with a rep- 
resentation of a tempestuous sea (in perpetual 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. \J 

agitation), and storm, in which the usurper's 
ship is wrecked ; the wreck ends with a beautiful 
shower of fire ; and the whole to conclude with 
a calm sea, on which appears Neptune, poetick 
god of the ocean, and his royal consort, Amphi- 
trite, in a chariot drawn by sea-horses, &c, &c." 
It was in this performance, as Ariel, Chief Spirit, 
that, at the age of thirteen, Sarah made her first 
success. " She darted hither and thither," we 
are told, " with such airy grace ; there was some- 
thing so sprite-like in her free swiftness of 
motion, she seemed to be so entirely a creature 
born of the loves of a breeze and a sunbeam, 
that the whole audience broke into frantic 
applause at the end of the play, and her proud, 
happy father began dimly to foresee his daugh- 
ter's future." 

Later, we find a performance by the company 
of " Love in a Village " announced, the names 
printed thus : — 

Sir William Meadows, by Mr. K — mb — le. 

Young Meadows, by Mr. S — dd — ns. 

Rosetta, by Miss K — mb — le. 

Madge, by Mrs. K — mb — le. 

Housemaid, by Miss F. K — mb — le. 
In the November following, John Philip was 
sent to Sedgely Park near Wolverhampton, a 
Catholic seminary. A short entry has been dis- 



1 8 MRS. SID DONS. 

covered in the College books, stating that "John 
and {sic) Philip Kemble came Nov. 3rd, 1767, 
and brought 4 suits of clothes, 12 shirts, 12 pairs 
of stockings, 6 pairs of shoes, 4 hats, 2 Daily- 
Companions, a Half Manual, knives, forks, 
spoons, iEsop's Fables, combs, 1 brush, 8 hand- 
kerchiefs, 8 nightcaps." 

" Jack abiit, July 28, 1771." 

After four years' residence here, his father 
sent him to the English College at Douai, to 
pursue a regular divinity course, his intention 
being to put the future Coriolanus into the 
priesthood. 

Sarah still continued her studies, such as they 
were, at the various towns at which the " come- 
dians" pitched their tent in their wanderings to 
and fro. She was taught vocal and instrumen- 
tal music, and her father, remarking that she 
had fine natural powers of elocution, wished 
them cultivated by regular tuition as a part of 
her education, with no view to the stage ; for this 
purpose he was tempted to enter into an agree- 
ment with an individual named William Combe, 
to give her a course of lessons. 

The itinerant players were generally looked 
upon as a valuable addition to the inn parlor, 
and were welcome to a supper or a pot of ale in 
return for their society and amusing talk. It 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 1 9 

was on one of these occasions that Roger Kem- 
ble, who was a jovial and popular companion, 
met Combe, and was so attracted by his clever 
conversation, as to engage him as instructor to 
his daughter. Mrs. Kemble, evidently a woman 
of considerable common sense and penetration, 
refused to ratify the appointment, however, and 
Roger was obliged to get out of his promise by 
giving a performance for the benefit of the ad- 
venturer, who, having run through a fortune, 
was perfectly penniless. 

To the last day of his life William Combe en- 
tertained a rancorous dislike to the great actress, 
and took pleasure in telling his friends mali- 
ciously how sordid her early life had been, and 
how he himself remembered her, when a girl, 
standing at the wing of a country theatre, beat- 
ing snuffers against a candlestick to represent 
the sound of a windmill in some rude panto- 
mime. 

Curiously enough, Milton's poetry more than 
Shakespeare's was the object of Sarah's admira- 
tion in her youth. When but ten years old, 
Campbell tells us, she pored over " Paradise 
Lost " for hours together. The long, tiresome 
speeches between Adam and his wife, Satan's 
address to the sun — most children's despair — 
were her delight. The stately, ponderous verse 



t 



20 MRS. SID DONS. 

suited her genius. The poet also gives us a 
story which, he tells, Mrs. Siddons left amongst 
her memoranda. 

One day her mother promised to take her out 
with a party of friends picnicking in the neigh- 
borhood. She was to wear a new pink dress, 
if the weather were fine. On going to bed the 
evening before the great event, she took her 
prayer-book with her, and opening it, as she sup- 
posed, at the prayer for fine weather, fell asleep 
with the book folded in her arms. At day-break 
the child found, to her dismay, that she had been 
holding the prayer for rain to her breast, and 
that the rain — Heaven having taken her at her 
word — was pelting against the windows. She 
went to bed again, with the book opened at the 
right place, and found the mistake remedied. 
When she awoke the morning was as rosy as 
the dress she was to wear. 

Croker thinks it necessary, with all the weight 
of his authority, to refute this childish reminis- 
cence, by pointing out that the prayers for rain 
and fine weather are on the same page of the 
prayer-book. We repeat the story principally 
because it shows the quaint methodistical piety 
and almost childish superstition which dwelt with 
Mrs. Siddons all through her chequered career. 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 21 

There is little doubt this piety was greatly owing 
to the principles inculcated by her mother. 

Mrs. Kemble was a stately, austere woman, 
with a certain amount of genius and much force 
of character, and energetic and brave in her 
humble sphere of life, in most difficult circum- 
stances. She fought by the side of her husband 
a hard battle with poverty, and maintained and 
educated a family of twelve children. Spartan 
in her views of training youth, her imperious 
despotism of character has often been described 
as absolutely awful. It was the custom of the 
time to rule a household with some sternness, 
but her children trembled in her presence. In 
later days she addressed a characteristic reproof 
to her son John : " Sir, you are as proud as Lu- 
cifer." He and that majestic mother of his must 
indeed have been a Coriolanus and Volumnia in 
every-day life. Her voice had much of the 
measured emphasis of her daughter's, and her 
portrait, the only one we know of, that always 
hung in Mrs. Siddons' sitting-room, had an in- 
tellectual, almost grand expression, reminding 
us more of a good-looking Elizabeth Fry, with 
the tight-fitting frilled cap, and soft muslin hand- 
kerchief crossed around the throat, than what 
one might have pictured Sally Kemble, the 
strolling actress. Though extremely handsome 



22 MRS. SID DONS. 

when Roger Kemble first married her, and sub 
jected to all the temptations of an actress's life, 
she never wavered in wifely devotion, and would 
maintain to the last day of her life that in some 
parts her Roger was "unparalleled." Hers is 
the only testimony to that effect, and we rather 
imagine him to have been a very indifferent ac- 
tor, but a handsome good-tempered man with 
the manners of a gentleman, and views of life 
beyond his humble profession. 

Proud, reserved, John Kemble paid, years 
after, the best tribute to his memory, when, on 
hearing of his death, he wrote to his brother 
from Madrid, on 31st December, 1802 : "How 
sincerely I always loved my father and respected 
his sound understanding, you know too well for 
it to be necessary that I should even mention 
what I feel at this moment, on opening your let- 
ter. God Almighty receive him into His ever- 
lasting happiness, and teach me to be resigned 
and resolute, to deserve to follow him when my 
appointed hour is come. My poor mother, 
though I know she will exert becoming firmness 
of mind in this, and every passage of her life, 
cannot but feel a melancholy void in losing the 
companion of her youth, the associate of her ad- 
vancing years, and the father of her children. 
I regret from the very bottom of my heart that 



PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 2% 

I cannot, with the most dutiful affection, assure 
her, at her feet, that what a grateful son can 
offer and do shall never be wanting from me to 
promote her content and ease and happiness. 
How, in vain, have I delighted myself in thou- 
sands of inconvenient occurrences on this jour- 
ney, with the thought of contemplating my 
father's cautious incredulity while I related them 
to him ! Millions of things, uninteresting maybe 
to anybody else, I had treasured up for his sur- 
prise and scrutiny ! It is God's pleasure that he 
is gone from us. The resignation I had long 
observed in him to the will of Heaven, and his 
habitual piety, are no small consolation to me ; 
yet I cannot help feeling a dejected swelling at 
my heart, that keeps me in a flood of tears for 
him, in spite of all I can do to stop them." 



CHAPTER II. 

MARRIAGE. 

As Sarah Kemble passed from childhood to 
early womanhood, she continued to act the round 
of all the company's plays, taking more impor- 
tant parts as she grew older. The very atmos- 
phere she breathed was dramatic. To walk the 
stage was a second nature to her. She was not, 
however, at the same time shut out from com- 
mon-place every-day matters. She helped her 
mother in the household work, and went from a 
rehearsal to the making of a pudding or the 
darning of a pair of stockings. There is little 
doubt that this free mixing in the simple family 
life of her home gave a healthy balance to her 
mind. Like her mother, she always kept her 
domestic life intact in the midst of her profes- 
sional occupations, and ever remained simple 
and womanly. Her fine friends in later days 
would tell how they had found her ironing a 
frock for one of her children, or studying a new 
part while she rocked the cradle of the last baby. 

At the age of sixteen, Sarah's beauty had at- 
(24) 



MARRIAGE. 25 

tracted the attention of her audiences. One or 
two squires of the county places they visited 
offered her their homage ; but before she was 
seventeen her affections were already engaged 
by a member of the troupe, an apprentice from 
Birmingham. 

We have already seen the name of Siddons 
figuring on the Kemble play-bills, when Sarah 
was only thirteen years of age. We can imagine, 
therefore, all the opportunities that the young 
people had of falling in love, rehearsing together, 
acting together, with the continual communion of 
interest brought about by their profession. No 
wonder that even Mr. Evans, a Welsh squire, with 
three hundred a year, who, enslaved by Sarah's 
singing of " Robin, Sweet Robin," offered her his 
hand, was ignominiously refused. Her parents, 
however, took a different view, and, allured by 
the splendor of Mr. Evans' offer, revoked the 
unwilling consent they had given to their daugh- 
ter's engagement to Siddons, and summarily 
dismissed him from the company. 

The indignant lover had recourse to a method 
of revenge that seems as novel as it was ungen- 
tlemanly. Being allowed a farewell benefit, he 
took the opportunity — it was at Brecon — of tak- 
ing the audience into his confidence, and, in 



26 MRS. SIDDONS. 

doggerel of the worst description, informed them 
of his woes : — 

Ye ladies of Brecon, whose hearts ever feel 
For wrongs like to this I'm about to reveal, 
Excuse the first product, nor pass unregarded 
The complaints of poor Colin, a lover discarded. 

Yet still on his Phyllis his hopes were all placed, 
That her vows were so firm they could ne'er be effaced ; 
But soon she convinced him 't was all a mere joke, 
For duty rose up, and her vows were all broke. 

Dear ladies, avoid one indelible stain, 
Excuse me, I beg, if my verse is too plain 
But a jilt is the devil, as has long been confessed, 
Which a heart like poor Colin's must ever detest. 

We only give three verses of the eleven, being 
as much, we think, as our readers could submit 
to with patience. 

How a girl of any spirit could forgive a lover 
for thus exposing their private affairs, and how a 
girl of any artistic appreciation could forgive a 
lover such bad verses, and take him back into 
her good graces, is more than we can understand. 
Mrs. Kemble, her mother, seemed to take the 
most correct view of the situation, for, instead 
of excusing "the first product " of the luckless 
poet, " his merits tho' small," she amply re- 
warded with a ringing box on the ears as he left 
the stage. 



MARRIAGE. 2 J 

Jones, a member of Roger Kemble's company, 
preserved some verses written by Sarah to her 
lover, which show her to be as superior to him 
in taste and poetic perception, as she afterwards 
proved herself in dramatic power : — 

Say not, Strephon, I'm untrue, 

When I only think of you ; 

If you do but think of me 

As I of you, then shall you be 

Without a rival in my heart, 

Which ne'er can play a tyrant's part. 

Trust me, Strephon, with thy love — 
I swear by Cupid's bow above, 
Nought shall make me e'er betray, 
Thy passion till my dying day ; 
If I live, or if I die, 
Upon my constancy rely. 

Siddons sufficiently relied on her constancy, 
in spite of his statements to "ye ladies of Bre- 
con," to suggest to his beloved an immediate 
elopement, which suggestion she, as Campbell 
quaintly puts it, " tempering amatory with filial 
duty," politely declined, and her lover left. 

As it was considered advisable to wean Sarah 
from old associations she was sent away for a 
time, and lived " under the protection " of Mrs. 
Greatheed, of Guy's Cliff in Warwickshire. 
Some have maintained that she was nursemaid 
or housemaid ; but the terms she was on with 



28 MRS. SIDDOA'S. 

her mistress, who presented her with a copy of 
Milton, precludes that idea, unless, by her smart- 
ness and industry, she, within a very short 
period of her engagement, worked herself into a 
better position. Campbell also points out that 
there were no children to be nursed in the 
Greatheed family at that time. " Her station 
with them," he continues, "was humble, but 
not servile, and her principal employment was 
to read to the elder Mr. Greatheed." The 
secret history of the green room informs us 
that she was maid to Lady Mary Bertie, Samuel 
Greatheed's second wife ; and the Duchess of 
Ancaster told Mrs. Geneste she well remem- 
bered Lady Mary once bringing this attractive 
attendant with her on a visit. 

It was remarked that she delighted in reciting 
fragments of plays for the entertainment of the 
servants' hall. Lord Robert Bertie was so fond 
of listening and admiring her declamation, that 
Lady Mary had to beg of him to desist, and " not 
encourage the girl to go on the stage." Young 
Greatheed told Miss Wynn later on that he had 
often heard Mrs. Siddons read " Macbeth " when 
she was his mother's maid. 

Lady Mary confessed years afterwards to 
" Conversation " Sharp, that so queenly was the 
bearing of the young girl, even at that early age, 



MARRIAGE. 29 

that she always felt an irresistible inclination to 
rise from her chair when her maid came to 
attend her. 

We can imagine the romantic girl wandering 
through the lonely glades, and amongst the 
stately elm-groves of Guy's Cliff, or along the 
shores of the soft-flowing Avon, Shakespeare's 
Avon, that glides at the foot of the rocks be- 
tween green meadows, dreaming of her love, and 
reading the poet she loved so well, whose birth- 
place and burial-place lay so near where she 
was. She must have heard reminiscences told 
of the great Jubilee that had taken place in 1769, 
only three years before, when Mr. Garrick and a 
"brilliant company of nobility and gentry," had 
come down to Stratford to celebrate the Shakes- 
perean centenary. She little knew then that it 
was in a repetition of the Jubilee procession on 
the boards of Drury Lane she was destined to 
make her first bow to a London audience. 
There is a tradition that she met Garrick during 
her stay at Guy's Cliff. It is not impossible, as, 
after the Jubilee, he was a constant guest at the 
Greatheeds. The statement hardly tallies, how- 
ever, with his writing sometime later to Moody 
to the effect that there "was a woman Siddons " 
acting at Liverpool, who might suit the Drury 
Lane company, and asking him to go and have 



30 MRS. SID DONS. 

a look at her. He might easily, however, have 
failed to connect the girl Sarah Kemble with 
the woman Mrs. Siddons. 

It redounds much to the credit both of the 
Greatheeds and the actress, that afterwards, in 
spite of the change of circumstances, Mrs. Sid- 
dons ever remained a firm friend of the family. 
We find Miss Berry in 1822, forty-seven years 
later, writing in her journal : — 

" Guy's Cliff, Tuesday, Jan. 1st. — Mrs. Sid- 
dons and her daughter arrived. 

" Wednesday, 2d. — Mrs. Siddons read 
" Othello," the two parts of Iago and Othello, 
quite a merveille." 

We find Bertie Greatheed standing sponsor 
for her daughter Cecilia in 1794; and, greatest 
test of true friendship, writing a tragedy, " The 
Regent," which failed disastrously. 

In spite of stern parents and social obstacles 
" Love will be ever Lord of all." William Sid- 
dons came several times to Guy's Cliff to see 
her. There, almost within sight of Shottery, 
where Shakespeare enacted his love story with 
Anne Hathaway, Sarah Kemble enacted hers. 
Wandering amidst the scented fields through 
which Shakespeare wandered, William Siddons 
again pleaded his cause, and was forgiven his 



MARRIAGE. 31 

bad verses and untimely confidences for the sake 
of his persistency. 

The Kembles seeing the attachment was seri- 
ous, at last gave their consent, and in her nine- 
teenth year Sarah Kemble became Mrs. Siddons. 

The marriage took place at Trinity Church, 
Coventry, November 26th, 1773, and on the 4th 
of October following, the first child, Henry, was 
born, at Wolverhampton. 

Mr. Siddons was just the man to fascinate a 
young and high-spirited girl. Good-looking, 
calm, sedate, even-tempered, not over-burdened 
with brain-power, and not too much will of his 
own. One might apply to him what Johnson 
said of Sheridan's father, " He is not a bad man, 
no, Sir ; were mankind to be divided into good 
and bad, he would stand considerably within the 
ranks of the good." "A damned rascally 
player," the Rev. Henry Bate says forcibly, "but 
a civil fellow." We are told that he had not 
only that invention which in provincial theatres 
is the first of requisites, but he also possessed 
the second, a quick study, in almost unequalled 
perfection. He could make himself master of 
the longest dramatic character between night 
and night, and deliver it with the accuracy that 
seems to result only from long application ; but 
so slight was the impression made, that it es~ 



32 MRS. SID DONS. 

caped from his memory in as few hours as he 
had employed to learn it. It was said later by 
members of his wife's company, that though 
Siddons was a bad actor himself, he was an 
excellent judge, always drilling his wife, and 
very cross at any failure. His position as hus- 
band of the " great Mrs. Siddons," continually 
cast into the shade by her superiority, was an 
unthankful one, but we must confess that he 
filled it with commendable equanimity. 

Their love wore better than the tinsel finery 
amidst which it began. The happy domestic 
life that succeeded was undoubtedly a great 
safeguard amidst the dangers and difficulties of 
her life, saving her from much that is the ruin 
of her less protected sisters. We are told that 
in the days of her success, when her would-be 
admirers and lovers were legion, her husband's 
ear was the one to which she confided all the 
incidents of attempted gallantry, invariably at- 
tending an actress's life ; and many were the 
hearty laughs they indulged in together over 
them. Perhaps now and then there was too 
great an inclination to make use of him. We 
find the poor man writing to managers as their 
obedient humble servant, making piteous appeals 
to Garrick, and put forward to dun Sheridan for 
the amount due to his wife ; but at first they 



MARRIAGE. 33 

seem to have shared all the trials and struggles 
of their profession together. 

Wolverhampton was their first stage after 
their marriage. The reigning Mayor seems to 
have nourished a prejudice against all actors. 
He had closed the King's Head Yard, and 
declared contemptuously that " neither player, 
puppy, nor monkey," should perform in the 
town. After a popular demonstration, he was 
induced to rescind this harsh interdict ; and by 
the Christmas of 1773, Roger Kemhle was giv- 
ing two stock dramas, " The West Indian " and 
"The Padlock." Sarah appeared for the first 
time as Mrs. Siddons, at a farewell "Bespeak." 
An address, written by herself, and spoken on 
this occasion, has been found and published by 
an inhabitant of Wolverhampton : — 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — my spouse and I 
Have had a squabble, and I'll tell you why. 
He said I must appear; nay, vowed 'twas right 
To give you thanks for favors shown to-night. 

* * * * * 

He still insisted, and, to win consent, 
Strove to o'ercome me with a compliment ; 
Told me that I the favorite here had reigned, 
While he but small or no applause had gained. 
" Pen me some lines where I may talk and swagger, 
Of poisons, murders, done by bowl or dagger; 
Or let me, with my brogue and action ready, 
Give them a brush, my dear, of Widow Brady." 

3 



34 MRS. SIDDONS. 

First, for a father, who on this fair ground, 
Has met with friendship seldom to be found, 
May th' All-Good Power your every virtue nourish, 
Health, wealth, and trade in Wolverhampton flourish I " 

This doggrel is almost on a par with Mr. 
Siddons' effusion to the Ladies of Brecon. 

In the year following Mr. and Mrs. Siddons 
made their way to Cheltenham, then a town con- 
sisting of but one street, " through the middle of 
which ran a clear stream of water, with stepping- 
stones that served as a bridge." Already, how- 
ever, its merits as a watering place had been 
noised abroad, and some of the "people of 
quality " had begun to find their way there. See- 
ing the play of " Venice Preserved " announced 
for representation at the theatre, some of the 
fashionables took tickets, hoping to be highly 
diverted with the badness of the rustic perform- 
ance. The man at the box-office, who had 
listened to their thoughtless remarks, reported 
them to Mrs. Siddons, who was to act the part 
of Belvidera. The young actress felt oppressed 
at the idea of the ordeal she was to be subjected 
to. Ridicule was all her life the one thing the 
tragic muse could not face ; and from the 
moment of first coming on she was conscious of 
the antagonistic influence in one of the boxes, 
and imagined she heard the sounds of suppressed 



MARRIAGE. 35 

laughter. She left the theatre after the play, 
deeply mortified. Next day Mr. Siddons met 
x Lord Aylesbury in the street, who inquired 
after Mrs. Siddons' health. He then expressed 
his admiration of her acting the night before, 
and declared that the ladies of his party had 
wept so excessively that they were laid up with 
headaches. Mr. Siddons rushed home to glad- 
den his wife's heart with the news. The actress 
owed one of the truest friendships of her life to 
this incident, for Miss Boyle, Lord Aylesbury's 
step-daughter, came to call on her the same day 
to express her delight in person, and from that 
time never allowed 'the intimacy to drop. This 
lady seems to have possessed considerable artis- 
tic gifts in several ways, having, as Campbell 
tells us with much emphasis, written " An Ode to 
a Poppy," which was thought full of merit in her 
day. What was of more importance to the 
young actress, however, than her new friend's 
qualifications for writing " odes " was her power 
of making costumes for different parts with her 
own hands, and her generosity in supplying 
" properties " from her own wardrobe. There 
were some, however, that even the Honorable 
Miss Boyle did not possess. For the male 
habiliments of the Widow Brady, the young 
actress found on the night of the performance 



2,6 MRS. SID DONS. 

that no provision had been made. The story 
goes that a gentleman politely left the box 
where he was seated, lent her his coat, and 
stood in the side-scenes with a petticoat over 
his shoulders until his property was restored to 
him. Whether this courteous individual was 
Lord Aylesbury we are not told, but we know 
that he was one of Miss Boyle's party. 

The particular fascination of Mrs. Siddons' 
acting in those early days was its simplicity and 
pathos, which, united with remarkable beauty 
and power of expression, gained the hearts of 
all rustic audiences. Her talent, however, seems 
to have been singularly immature, considering 
the continual practice she had enjoyed, almost 
from her cradle, in stage affairs. Rachel 
reached the summit of her power at seventeen, 
Mrs. Siddons not until she was thirty. She 
herself confesses later, in the account she gives 
of her first reading of " Macbeth : " " Being then 
only twenty years of age, I believed, as many 
others do believe, that little more was necessary 
than to get the words into my head ; for the 
necessity of discrimination, and the development 
of character, at that time of my life, had scareely 
entered into my imagination." 

The power of drawing tears, however, was 
already hers, and rumors of the charm and 



MARRIAGE. 37 

beauty of the young actress had been wafted to 
London, reaching even the ears of the great 
Garrick himself. Mrs. Siddons tells us, in her 
Autograph Recollections : " Mr. King, by order 
of Mr. Garrick, who had heard some account of 
me from the Aylesbury family, came to Chelten- 
ham to see me in the " Pair Penitent." I knew 
neither Mr. King nor his purpose at the time." 
Neither did she know of the second emissary 
whom Garrick sent, the Rev. Henry Bate, who 
in 1 78 1 took the name of Dudley, and was after- 
wards made a canon and a baronet ; a bruising, 
muscular clergyman of the old school, who 
fought duels one moment and wrote "slashing" 
articles on every subject, "human and divine," 
the next. He was well known as a theatrical 
censor and critic of considerable acumen. We 
know him by Gainsborough's portrait, standing 
in a garden with his dog. It is said that a 
political opponent remarked that the man wanted 
"execution " and the dog " hanging." We find 
Garrick continually sending him on theatrical 
errands. We give the letters he wrote about . 
Mrs. Siddons very nearly in their entirety, on 
account of their characteristic quaint humor and 
shrewd power of observation ; and also because 
they to a certain degree exonerate Garrick from 
some of the charges brought against him by 
Mrs. Siddons : — 



38 MRS. SID DO ATS. 

My Dear Friend, 

After combatting the various difficulties of one of the 
cussidest cross-roads in this kingdom, we arrived safe at Chel- 
tenham on Thursday last, and saw the theatrical heroine of 
that place in the character of Rosalind. Though I beheld her 
from the side wing of the stage (a barn about three yards over), 
and consequently under almost every disadvantage, I own she 
made so strong an impression upon me, that I think she cannot 
fail to be a valuable acquisition to Drury Lane. Her figure 
must be remarkably fine, although marred for the present. 
Her face (if I could judge from where I saw it) is one of the 
most strikingly beautiful for stage effect that I ever beheld, 
but I shall surprise you more when I assure you that these 
are nothing to her action and general stage deportment, 
which are remarkably pleasing and characteristic ; in short, I 
know no woman who marks the different passages and transi- 
tions with so much variety, and at the same time propriety of 
expression. In the latter humbug scene with Orlando previous 
to her revealing herself, she did more with it than anyone I ever 
saw, not even your divine Mrs. Barry excepted. It is necessary 
after this panegyric, however, to inform you that her voice 
struck me at first as rather dissonant, and I fancy, from the 
private conversation I had with her, that in impassion scenes it 
must be somewhat grating ; however, as I found it wear away 
as the business became more interesting, I am inclined to think 
it only an error of affectation, which may be corrected, if not 
totally removed. She informed me she has been upon the stage 
from her cradle. This, though it surprised me, gave me the 
highest opinion of her judgment, to find she had contracted no 
strolling habits, which have so often been the bane of many a 
theatrical genius. She will most certainly be of great use to 
you, at all events, on account of the great number of characters 
she plays, all of which, I will venture to assert, she fills with 
propriety, though I have not yet seen her but in one. She is, 
as you have been informed a very good breeches figure, and 
plays in " Widow Brady," I am informed, admirably. I should 
not wonder, from her ease, figure, and manner, if she made the 



MARKIA GE. 



39 



proudest she of either house tremble in genteel comedy — nay, 
beware yourself, " Great Little Man," for she plays Hamlet to 
the satisfaction of the Worcestershire critics. 

The moment the play was over I wrote a note to her husband 
(who is a damned rascally player, though seemingly a very civil 
fellow) requesting an interview with him and his wife, intima- 
ting at the same time the nature of my business. You will 
not blame me for making this forced march in your favor, as I 
learnt that some of the Covent Garden Mohawks were intrenched 
near the place and intended carrying her by surprise. At the 
conclusion of the farce they waited upon me, and, after I had 
opened my commission, she expressed herself happy at the 
opportunity of being brought out under your eye, but declined 
proposing any terms, leaving it entirely with you to reward her 
as you thought proper. 

You will perceive that at present she has all that diffidence 
usually the first attendant on merit ; how soon the force of Drury 
Lane examples, added to the rising vanity of a stage heroine, may 
transform her, I cannot say. It happens very luckily that the 
company comes to Worcester for the race week, when I shall 
take every opportunity of seeing her, and if I find the least 
reason to alter my opinion (perhaps too hastily formed), you 
shall immediately have my recantation. My wife, whose judg- 
ment in theatrical matters I have a high opinion of, joins with 
me in these sentiments respecting her merit. I should have 
wrote to you before, but no post went out from anywhere near 
here but this night's. 

I shall expect to hear from you by return of the post, as Sid- 
dons will call upon me to know whether you look upon her as 
engaged. My wife joins me in respects to Mrs. Garrick and 
yourself. I remain my dear Sir (after writing a damned jar- 
gon, I suppose, of unintelligible stuff in haste), 

Ever yours most truly, 

H. Bate. 

Worcester, 12th August, 1775. 

P. S.— Direct to me at the " Hop Pole." 

To David Garrick, Esq., Adelphi, London. 



40 MRS. SIDDONS. 

My Dear Friend, Worcester, Aug. 19th, 1775. 

I received your very friendly letter, and take the first post 
from hence to answer it. I found it unnecessary to make the 
intimation you desired to the husband, since he requires only 
to be employed in any manner you shall think proper ; and as 
he is much more tolerable than I thought him at first, it may be 
no very difficult matter to station him so as to satisfy the man, 
without burdening the property. I saw him the other evening 
in Young Marlow in Goldsmith's Comedy, and then he was 
far from despicable ; neither his figure nor face contemptible. 
A jealousy prevailing through the theatre, upon a suspicion of 
their leaving them, the acting manager seems determined that 
I shall not see her again in any character wherein she might 
give me a second display of her theatrical powers. I am re- 
solved, however, to continue the siege till they give her some- 
thing capital, knowing that must speedily be the case or the 
garrison must fall by famine. 

She has already gone six months, so that pretty early in 
December she will be fit for service ; as you certainly mean to 
open the ensuing campaign, by charging in person at the head 
of your lines, I conceive she will come at a very favorable 
crisis to take a second command, when the retreat from the 
field may be politically necessary. I am strongly for her first, 
appearance in " Rosalind ; " but you may judge better, perhaps, 
after a perusal of the list on the other side ; the characters 
marked under [in italics] are those which she prefers to oth- 
ers : — 

Jane Shore, Alicia, Roxar.a, Grecian Daughter, Matilda, 
Belvidera, Calista, Monimia, Juliet, Cordelia, Horatia, Imogen, 
Marianne, Lady Townley, Portia, Mrs. Belville, Violante, 
Rosalind, Mrs. Strickland, Clarinda, Miss Aubrey, Charlotte, 
Widow Brady. 

You are certainly right respecting a memorandum between 
you ; the moment, therefore, I receive one from you it shall be 
conveyed to them at Cheltenham, where they return next week, 
and they have promised to return me an answer immediately at 
Birmingham, for which place I shall set off the instant I have 



MARRIAGE. 41 

received your letter in any way to town, in order to conclude 
this business finally, and to the satisfaction of all parties. I am 
desired to request your answer to the three following partic- 
ulars : — 

1st. As they are ready to attend your summons at any time, 
Whether they are not to be allowed something to subsist upon 
when they come to town previous to her appearance ? 

2d. "Whether you have any objection to employ him in any 
situation in which you may think him likely " to be useful " ? 

3d. When you choose they should attend you ? 

As to the first, without you are inclined to have them at the 
opening of the house, perhaps her remaining in the country, in 
their own company, where they do very well, may ease you of 
some expense ; but of this you must be the best judge. With 
respect to him, I think you can have no objection to take him 
upon the terms he proposes himself. I forgot to tell you that 
Mrs. Siddons is about twenty years of age. It would be unjust 
not to remark one circumstance in favor of them both ; I mean 
the universal good character they have preserved here for many 
years, on account of their public as well as private conduct in 
life. 1 beg you to be very particular in your answer to the three 
queries, and likewise expressly to mention the time you wish to 
see them, that they may arrange their little matters accordingly. 

In a postscript he adds : — 

She is the most extraordinary quick study I ever heard of. 
This cannot be amiss, for, if I recollect right, we have a suffi- 
cient number of the leaden-headed ones at D. Lane. 

Then came letters from Siddons, in answer to 
some from Bate, concluding an engagement. 
We can see the trembling anxiety of the young 
couple. "They were in much concern," he says, 
"at not hearing sooner," as from the line he 



42 M/eS. STDDONS. 

had shown him in Mr. Garrick's handwriting, he 
had been sure of Mrs. Siddons' engagement. 
They had, in consequence, given his partners in 
management at Cheltenham notice of his inten- 
tion to go ; if anything had happened, therefore, to 
prevent their engagement, it would have " proved 
a very unlucky circumstance." He then touches 
on a very necessary point — their pressing need 
of money to tide them over Mrs. Siddons' ex- 
pected confinement. " Mr. Garrick," he says, 
" has conferred an eternal obligation by his kind 
offer of the cash." 

In his next letter, dated Gloucester, Novem- 
ber 9th, 1775, he writes: — "From my former 
accounts of Mrs. Siddons' time, you'll be sur- 
prised when I tell you she is brought to bed ; 
she was unexpectedly taken ill when performing 
on the stage, and early the next morning pro- 
duc'd me a fine girl. They are both, thank 
Heaven, likely to do well ; but I am afraid, Sir, 
notwithstanding this, I shan't be able to leave 
this much sooner than the time I last men- 
tioned." He then alludes to twenty pounds 
borrowed in Garrick's name to meet pressing 
demands. 

This "fine girl" was Mrs. Siddons' daughter, 
Sarah, whose premature death later nearly broke 
her mother's heart. 



CHAPTER III. 

"DAVEY." 

" Have you ever heard," asked Garrick, in an - 
unpublished letter to Moody, then at Liverpool, 
" of a woman Siddons, who is strolling about 
somewhere near you ? " Four months later, by 
the help of the Rev. Henry Bate's favorable re- 
port of her powers, she made her first appearance 
at Drury Lane. The Golden Gates of the Tem- 
ple of Fame were thrown open. The young 
priestess had but to enter, one would have 
thought, and light the sacred flame; but genius 
is not to be bound by expediency or opportunity. 

It was in 1775, the year when Garrick gave 
up the management, that Mrs. Siddons appeared 
on the boards of Drury Lane. She had reached 
the highest point of her ambition — she was to 
act with the greatest actor of his time before a 
dramatic audience rendered fastidious and criti- 
cal by great traditions. 

This is the most unfortunate portion of her 
life to recount. Failure and disappointment at- 
tended every step she made ; and this failure and 

(43) 



44 MRS. SID DONS. 

disappointment, although it did not in the least 
discourage her in the prosecution of her art, 
hurried her into bitterness and an unjust feeling 
of rancor against Garrick, which an examina- 
tion of the circumstances of the case in no way 
warrants. One of the Kemble weaknesses was 
a proud sensitiveness to anything like slight or 
neglect, and these slights were as often as not 
phantoms of their own imaginations. 

It gives one a mournful sense of injustice to 
see the charge of jealousy she openly brings re- 
peated by the earlier biographer who wrote 
about her when we, who have fuller light thrown 
upon the great actor's life by the publication of 
his correspondence, know how free he was from 
the besetting sins of his craft. To be popular, 
a man must have the faults of those among 
whom he is placed. Garrick was called stingy 
because he did not throw away his money like 
his colleagues ; stiff, because he was a moral 
man amidst a laxity of manners that has become 
proverbial ; jealous, because he placed the honor 
of his art and his theatre above personal consid- 
erations. He was an object of envy because of 
his unparalleled success. The two clouds which 
veiled the nobility of his character — love of 
money and love of fine friends — vanished like 
mists in the sunshine if he were really called 



"DA FEY." 45 

upon to help a case of distress or take notice of 
an old friend. These faults were harped upon, 
however, by Johnson, Foote, and hosts of others. 
Well might Garrick, in the evening of his days, 
sitting on the terrace of his house at Twicken- 
ham, make the, for him, bitter observation, " I 
have not always met gratitude in a play-house." 

It was at the time, no doubt, a salve to Mrs. 
Siddons' disappointment to listen to the specious 
Mr. Sheridan's insinuation of Garrick's jealousy ; 
but it is a curious fact, if Sheridan were sincere 
in his statements, that when he succeeded Gar- 
rick as manager he never endeavored to re- 
engage her ; indeed, on the contrary, abruptly 
and discourteously closed all negotiations and 
cancelled all agreements made both with the 
actress and her husband for a reappearance at 
Drury Lane. 

We will allow the reader, however, to judge 
the story upon its own merits. 

After the favorable reports of King and Bate, 
Garrick, as we have seen by the Bate letters, 
engaged Mrs. Siddons and her husband. The 
energy that afterwards distinguished her to such 
an extraordinary extent was now exhibited. 

Although not at all strong — her eldest girl, 
and second child, as we have seen, having only 
been born on the 5th of November, 1775 — in the 



46 MRS. SID DONS. 

beginning of December she began making prep- 
arations for her journey to London, no joke in 
those days when, " starting two hours before 
day, or as late at night," it took three days to 
reach Bristol. 

Five days, Mrs. Delaney tells us, travelling 
over the same road the Siddons had now to face, 
it took to reach her father's place in Gloucester- 
shire. " Every half hour flop we went into a 
slough, not overturned, but stuck. Out we were 
hauled, and the coach with much difficulty was 
set up again. 

Full of hope and excitement, however, the 
young actress, accompanied by husband and ba- 
bies, prepared for their expedition. No pilgrim 
approaching the shrine of Mecca was ever more 
enthusiastic than she approaching the bourne of 
all actors of that day, Drury Lane. Yet already, 
through all her delight, we hear a note of dis- 
satisfaction that is displeasing. Garrick had 
arranged to give her five pounds a week, a mu- 
nificent salary for a beginner in those days. 
Mrs. Abington and Mrs. Yates only received 
ten. She had heard the charge of stinginess 
made against him, and, parrot-like, repeated it, 
without really considering if in her own case it 
were true. 

We will relate the story, however, in her own 
words, taken from Recollections written many 



"DAVEY." 47 

years after, but full of as much bitterness as 
though penned while still smarting under her 
reverse. 

" Happy to be placed where I presumptuously 
augured that I should do all that I have since 
achieved, if I could but once gain the opportu- 
nity, I instantly paid my respects to the great 
man. I was at that time good-looking ; and 
certainly, all things considered, an actress well 
worth my poor five pounds a week. His praises 
were most liberally conferred upon me." We 
are told by Campbell that he complimented her 
in this interview for not having the regular 
" tie-tum-tie " or sing-song of the provincial ac- 
tress. "But," she goes on, " his attentions great 
and unremitting as they were, ended in worse 
than nothing. How was all this admiration to 
be accounted for consistently with his subse- 
quent conduct ? Why, thus, I believe : he was 
retiring from the management of Drury Lane, 
and, I suppose, at that time wished to wash his 
hands of all its concerns and details. However 
this may be, he always objected to my appear- 
ance in any very prominent character, telling 
me that Mrs. Yates and Miss Young would poi- 
son me if I did. I, of course, thought him not 
only an oracle but my friend ; and, in conse- 
quence of his advice, Portia, in the " Merchant of 
Venice," was fixed upon for my debut, a. char- 



48 MRS. SID DONS. 

acter in which it was not likely that I should 
excite any great sensation. / was, therefore, 
merely tolerated?' 

We here beg to mention that it can hardly be 
correct that Mrs. Siddons thought she would 
make no impression in Portia, as she had under- 
lined Portia in the list she gave Mr. Bate of her 
favorite parts, and we find her choosing it later 
as the character in which to appear before Hor- 
ace Walpole when desirous of propitiating the 
pitiless critic. But we will continue to relate 
the unfortunate story of this period in her own 
words. 

'■■ The fulsome adulation that courted Garrick 
in the theatre cannot be imagined ; and whoso- 
ever was the luckless wight who should be hon- 
ored by his distinguished and envied smiles, of 
course, became an object of spite and malevo- 
lence. Little did I imagine that I myself was 
now that wretched victim. He would sometimes 
hand me from my own seat in the green-room to 

place me next to his own He also," 

she goes on, " selected me to personate Venus 
at the revival of the "Jubilee." This gained me 
the malicious appellation of Garrick's ' Venus,' 
and the ladies who so kindly bestowed it on me 
rushed before me in the last scene, so that if he 
(Mr. Garrick) had not brought us forward with 
him with his own hands, my little Cupid and 



"DAVEY." 49 

myself, whose appointed situations were in the 
very front of the stage, might have as well been 
in the Island of Paphos at that moment." 

Thomas Didbin, the Cupid on this occasion, 
afterwards told Campbell that, as it was neces- 
sary for him to smile in the part of his godship, 
Mrs. Siddons kept him in good humor by asking 
him what sort of sugar-plums he liked best, and 
promising him a large supply of them. After 
the performance she kept her word. This is a 
characteristic trait ; most young actresses under 
the circumstances would have been rather occu- 
pied with the effect of their own beauty on the 
audience than of the smiles of their Cupids. 

At last the day came on which her fate was 
to be decided. It fell in Christmas week, 1775, 
and the audience present is described as "nu- 
merous and splendid." 

The following is a copy of the play-bill :-— 

(Not acted these two years.) 

By Her Majesty's Company at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane 

This day will be performed 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

Shylock . . Mr. King. Antonio . . Mr. Reddish. 

Gratiano . . Mr. Dodd. 

Lorenzo (with songs) . . Mr. Vernon. 

&c, &c. 

Then Jessica (with a song) . . Miss Jarrett. 

Nerissa . . Mrs. Davies. 

Portia, by a Young Lady (her first appearance). 

4 



50 MRS. SID DONS. 

The result can best be known by the judg- 
ment of the newspaper critics. One says : " On 
before us tottered rather than walked a very 
pretty, delicate, fragile-looking young creature, 
dressed in a most unbecoming manner, in a faded 
salmon-colored sack and coat, and uncertain 
whereabouts to fix either her eyes or her feet. 
She spoke in broken, tremulous tones ; and at 
the close of each sentence her voice sank into a 
* horrid whisper' that was almost inaudible. 
After her first exit, the judgment of the pit was 
unanimous as to her beauty, but declared her 
awkward and provincial." 

In the famous Trial scene she regained her 
courage, and delivered the great speech to Shy- 
lock with "critical propriety," but with a fain t- 
ness of utterance which seemed the result of 
physical weakness rather than of want of spirit 
or feeling. Another paper, who " understood 
that the new Portia had been the heroine of one 
of those petty parties of travelling comedians 
which wander over the country," owned that 
she had a fine stage-figure ; her features were 
expressive; she was uncommonly graceful ; but 
her voice was deficient in variety of tone and 
clearness. This, however, might be the effect of 
a cold or nervousness. Her words were deliv- 
ered with good sense and taste, only there was 



"davey;' 51 

no fire or spirit in the performance. " Nothing," 
the critic ends, " is so barren of either profit or 
fame as a cold correctness." 

Knowing the Kemble failing of over-study 
and self-restraint, this seems a fair enough criti- 
cism. She represented Portia again a few nights 
later, but her name did not appear on the bills. 
She showed more confidence, and succeeded a 
little better, but does not seem to have got a 
hold of her audience. 

Garrick was at this time employed in mount- 
ing an abridgement by Colman of Ben Jonson's 
" Epiccene," and trusting, we conclude, to the 
statement of his friend Mr. Bate, that the debu- 
tante had " a very good breeches-figure," he 
selected her for the heroine's part. The result 
was a failure. Critics complained of " the con- 
fusion, when Mrs. Siddons, disguised in the 
piece as a woman, revealed herself at the end 
as a boy." The Morning Post, edited by Parson 
Bate, was the only paper that spoke in favor of 
the attempt. 

The next part she was put into was by this 
same Bate, " The Blackamoor White-washed." 
We can see how Garrick was forced by the exi- 
gencies of his obligations to Bate to put this play 
on the stage ; the only mistake he made was in 
subjecting the young actress to the risks and 



52 



MRS. SID DONS. 



chances of the first representation, which, in 
consequence of the slashing pen and vigorous 
fists of its author, was not likely to be received 
with unalloyed approbation. Unfortunately he 
did not understand the proud timidity of the girl 
on whom he had laid the task. His other ladies 
did not mind a rebuff, and would do anything 
for a critic who praised them, as Mr. Bate had 
praised " Portia." As to a theatrical riot, they 
rather enjoyed it than otherwise, if it were not 
turned against them personally. Though treated 
to many a one afterwards, Mrs. Siddons never 
forgot this first experience. A band of prize- 
fighters, supposed to be supporters of the par- 
son's, burst into the pit, and, striking out right 
and left, silenced the would-be detractors of the 
play. On the next night both sides mustered 
in force, and the scene defied description. Offi- 
cers in the boxes fought with gentlemen from 
the pit and galleries. The ladies were driven 
from the boxes, leaving them in possession of 
the combatants. Garrick, who appeared to try 
and appease the mob, had an orange flung at 
him, and a lighted candle passed close to King, 
who came from the author to announce the with- 
drawal of the piece. Even this statement had 
not the effect of restoring quiet until past mid- 
night, when, weary with their exertions, the riot- 



"DAVEY." 53 

ers dispersed. Next day all the papers abused 
the Julia of the piece, who had not been allowed 
a chance of making herself heard. " Mrs. Sid- 
dons, having no comedy in her nature," one said, 
" rendered that ridiculous which the author evi- 
dently intended to be pleasant." 

On the 15th of February, Garrick again al- 
lowed her to appear; this time in Mr. Cowley's 
" Runaway " — a slight but telling part, which 
caused one of her critics to say that she drop- 
ped into the walking gentlewoman, and was not 
permitted a long walk before she became the 
" Runaway." Garrick then paid her the com- 
pliment of entrusting her with the acting of Mrs. 
Strickland to his Ranger in the old comedy of 
"The Suspicious Husband." One lady con- 
fesses to being moved to tears by Mrs. Siddons 
in this part, but the majority of the audience 
and .the newspapers seem to have passed her 
over in complete silence. 

Garrick now began his farewell performances. 
He selected her to act the Lady Anne to his 
Richard III. — a selection which was an honor 
coveted by most of the ladies of the company. 
The actor surpassed his finest days ; the young 
actress was almost petrified by the ferocity and 
fire of his gaze. She forgot, in her flurry, his 
important order that she should stand so that his 



54 MRS. SIDDONS. 

face might be presented to the audience. The 
look she received made her almost faint with 
terror, and no doubt betrayed her fright in her 
acting. The critics pronounced that she was 
"lamentable," and the public were utterly indif- 
ferent. Thjs was her last appearance. And so 
ended her first disastrous season at Drury Lane. 
We think every unbiassed person in reading the 
account of it will entirely absolve Garrick of the 
charges brought against him. Other causes 
were at work which the offended actress did not 
take into consideration. 

Garrick could not forgive crudeness, want of 
finish. He himself had stepped on the London 
stage with as much natural ease, and in his rep- 
resentation of Richard III. had taken the town 
as completely by storm the first time as the last 
time he acted it. He never made allowances for 
timidity, and grew impatient at want of confi- 
dence. We know he utterly despaired of Mrs. 
Graham, afterwards the great Mrs. Yates, when 
he first saw her in the part of Marcia ; and Miss 
Barton, afterwards Mrs. Abington, he allowed to 
leave Drury Lane at first because he could not, 
he said, give her a fitting part. The Kemble 
genius, on the other hand, was a plant of tardy 
growth, needing much cultivation and many years 
to bring it to perfection. 



"DAVEY." 55 

Garrick was above all a manager who had the 
honor of his theatre at heart. He had held the 
helm at Drury Lane for years, guiding the for- 
tunes of the company through stormy waters 
safely into the haven of financial and artistic 
success such as no theatre had ever enjoyed 
before ; but at what a cost ! Tormented by the 
jealousies, insolence, and greed of his leading 
ladies, disheartened by the envy and treachery 
of his oldest friends, he must have been glad to 
contemplate retirement from the turmoil, to 
enjoy undisturbed the competency he had been 
able to save from a long life spent in the service 
of his art and the public. He had but one year 
more of thraldom, but the harness had begun to 
gall almost beyond endurance. When he came 
home ill and worn out after protracted rehearsals, 
he found petulant letters to be answered ; when he 
went back to the theatre hostile attacks to be 
avoided, while outside were ranged secret and 
declared foes, jealous of his success, anxious to 
find a flaw in his honor or his genius. Suddenly 
he bethought him of a method, tried before with 
success, to curb the fiery tempers of the ladies 
within "his kingdom." He had heard of a 
lovely young actress, member of a company 
strolling in the provinces. He determined to 
engage her and use her as a foil against the 



56 MRS. SID DONS. 

rebellious members of his female staff, for the 
last year of office. It was not likely that, coming 
from humble surroundings and hard work, she 
would afflict him with many airs and graces ; 
and before time had been given her to spoil, his 
term as manager would have ceased. Garrick 
had never been given much cause to think highly 
of women during his long life as an actor — his 
own wife always excepted — and he most likely 
put Sarah Siddons on the same level as the 
others — sordid, like Miss Pope ; jealous, like 
Mrs. Yates ; or ill-tempered like Mrs. Clive — 
well able to take care of herself, and not gifted 
with those two rare qualities amongst theatrical 
ladies, modesty or sensitiveness. How could he 
guess, even with all his perspicacity and expe- 
rience, that this young creature — whose life 
hitherto had been spent strolling from place to 
place with the vagabonds and adventurers her 
profession threw her with — was proud, sensitive, 
timid, nourishing the very highest ideal of her. 
art, and indifferent to any homage given to her 
person and not to her intellectual power of 
interpreting the works of the great poets of her 
country ? How could he tell that beneath the 
pretty exterior of this young and trembling 
recruit lay hidden the fiery soul of the majestic, 
terrific Lady Macbeth? He treated her with 



a DAVEY. n 57 

an amount of consideration and courtesy unusual 
even with him, sending her boxes for all his 
great performances, when Cabinet Ministers 
were imploring places and had to be refused. 
He would hand her from the green-room and 
put her in the place of honor beside him ; and 
gave her parts which according to his judgment, 
formed hastily on what he had had an opportu- 
nity of seeing, best suited her. And how was he 
rewarded ? By a resentment nourished the 
whole of a lifetime, and by a charge persistently 
stated and repeated by her friends, that the great 
" Roscius " was jealous of an unskilled, untrained, 
country actress ! Why, then, had he not shown 
jealousy of Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Clive, or still 
more, of the gentlemen of his company, Barry and 
Smith, the Romeo and Charles Surface of their 
day. There are so few figures in public life com- 
plete and admirable as David Garrick's, so far 
removed above the pettiness and egotism accom- 
panying success, that it is with pain we read Mrs. 
Siddons' accusations, and think the only way to 
excuse her is to show the anguish experienced 
by both her husband and herself in the miser- 
able sequel to the sad story of failure and disap- 
pointment, and to ascribe her injustice to the 
misery of lives embittered and prospects blighted, 
for the time, making her ever afterwards see the 



58 AfRS. SID DO ATS. 

facts of the case through a distorted medium. 
We will relate in her own words what, now took 
place: — 

" He (Garrick) promised Mr. Siddons to pro- 
cure me a good engagement with the new 
managers, and desired him to give himself no 
trouble about the matter, but to put my cause 
entirely into his hands. He let me down, how- 
ever, after all these protestations, in the most 
humiliating manner, and, instead of doing me 
common justice with those gentlemen, rather 
depreciated my talents. This Mr. Sheridan 
afterwards told me ; and said that when Mrs. 
Abington heard of my impending dismissal, she 
told them they were all acting like fools. When 
the London season was over, I made an engage- 
ment at Birmingham for the ensuing summer, 
little doubting of my return to Drury Lane for 
the next winter ; but, whilst I was fulfilling my 
engagement at Birmingham, to my utter dismay 
and astonishment, I received an official letter 
from the prompter of Drury Lane, acquainting 
me that my services would be no longer required. 
It was a stunning and cruel blow, overwhelming 
all my ambitious hopes, and involving peril even 
to the subsistence of my helpless babes. It 
was very near destroying me. My blighted 
prospects, indeed, induced a state of mind that 



U -I>AVEY;" 59 

preyed upon my health, and for a year and a 
half I was supposed to be hastening to a decline. 
For the sake of my poor children, however, I 
roused myself to shake off this despondency, and 
my endeavors were 'blest with success in spite 
of the degradation I had suffered in being ban- 
ished from Drury Lane as a worthless candidate 
for fame and fortune." 

Siddons wrote piteously to Garrick on the 9th 
of February 1776, soliciting his "friendship" 
and " endeavor " for their continuance in Drury 
Lane. " I account we have been doubly unfor- 
tunate at our onset in the theatre, first that 
particular circumstances prevented us from join- 
ing it at a proper time, and thereby rendered it 
impossible for us to be mingled in the business 
of the season, where our utility might have been 
more observed ; second, that we are going to be 
deprived of you as manager, and left to those 
who, perhaps, may not have an opportunity this 
winter of observing us at all : these considera- 
tions, Sir, have occasioned this address, with 
hopes you will lay them before Mr. Lacy and 
those gentlemen your successors ; and as there 
has been no agreement with regard to salary 
between you and us, it may now be necessary to 
propose that article, thereby to acquaint them 
with what we shall expect, which (as we are so 



60 MRS. SID DONS. 

young in the theatre) is no more than what we 
can decently subsist on and appear with some 
credit to the profession. That is, for Mrs. Sid- 
dons three pounds a week, for myself two ; this, 
I flatter myself, we shall both be found worthy 
of for the first year; after that (as it may be 
presumed we shall be more experienced in our 
business) shall wish to rise as our merits may 
demand. I am, Sir, with many apologies for 
this freedom, your most obedient and very hum- 
ble servant, Wm. Siddons." 

It shows how disastrous the effect of her 
acting must have been that, in spite of the 
smallness of their demands, Lacy, Sheridan & 
Co. refused to entertain their proposal. 

It is a curious fact, if, as she says, the treat- 
ment she received at Garrick's hands was unjust, 
that at this juncture the managers of the rival 
theatre of Covent Garden, who had already been 
in treaty with her, and thought themselves 
unhandsomely dealt with when Garrick secured 
her, did not come forward now. It is clear that 
the anxiety of the Covent Garden managers for 
her assistance was extinguished by her perfor- 
mance ; those talents which they were ready 
before her appearance to contest with Garrick, 
they subsequently resigned without an effort to 
the obscurity of a strolling company. We have 



" DAVEY." 01 

a curious corollary to her statement, "that Mrs. 
Abington told them they were all acting like 
fools," in the lately published Memoirs of 
Crabbe Robinson, in which he relates a conversa- 
tion he held in 1811 with Mrs. Abington on the 
subject of Mrs. Siddons. She was by no means 
warm, he says, in her praise. She objected to 
the elaborate emphasis given to very insignifi- 
cant words. "That was brought in by them," 
she added, with truth, alluding to the weakness 
of the family. Perhaps the fair Abington's 
praise at first was as conclusive a sign of failure 
as Sheridan's dismissal. 

Good-natured Pivey Clive was more honest in 
saying nothing at the time ; but on going with 
Mrs. Garrick to see her later, when she was in 
the heyday of her success, she pronounced the 
young actress, in her own characteristic fashion, 
to be " all truth and daylight." 

We never hear Garrick's name mentioned 
again with hers, except in a note in connection 
with two folio Shakespeares of 1623. " In 1776," 
Payne Collier says, " Garrick had presented the 
volume (one of the folio copies with the auto- 
graphs of David Garrick and Sarah Siddons) to 
Mrs. Siddons as a testimony of her merits, and 
of his obligation." So far Payne Collier. An- 
other writer commenting on this note, demon- 



62 MRS. SID DONS. 

strates that it is not likely that Garrick pre- 
sented so great a treasure as the folio Shake- 
speare of 1623 to Mrs. Siddons, especially as 
the words "a testimony of her merits and his 
obligation " was an addition of Payne Collier. 
He then relates the circumstances of her first 
appearance. Garrick, he says, amongst other 
things, noticed some awkward action of her 
arms, and said " if she waved them about in 
that fashion she would knock off his wig," upon 
which she retorted to the person who told her, 
" he was only afraid I should overshadow his 
nose." A mutual feeling not likely to lead to 
such a gift. It would be interesting, therefore, 
to know through what hands the volume passed 
from Garrick to Mrs. Siddons, and from Mrs. 
Siddons to Lilly the bookseller. With the great 
actor's wife she was afterwards on terms of 
friendship ; and when Mrs. Garrick died, she 
left her in her will a pair of gloves which 
were Shakespeare's "and were presented to 
my late dear husband by one of the family 
during the Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon." And 
so " Davey " vanishes from her life. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The rebuff she had sustained at Drury Lane 
called out all that was finest in Mrs. Siddons' 
nature. The blow had been " stunning and 
cruel," as she says ; but the resolute valiant 
nature she had inherited from her mother soon 
reasserted itself. In spite of delicate health, 
which Wilkinson, who acted with her in " Evan- 
der," feared " might disable her from sustaining 
the fatigues of duty," we find her moving from 
place to place, unintermitting in study, attain- 
ing a step higher each new representation she 
essayed, persistently raising her audience to her 
level, not descending to theirs. 

She no longer led the " vagabond " life of her 
early strolling days, but still one of constant 
anxiety and unrest. The young actress returned 
to the provinces with the prestige of having 
acted with the great Garrick, and of having 
even excited the jealousy of " Roscius " by her 
dramatic power — a report industriously circulated 
by her friends and managers, and, no doubt 

(63) 



64 MRS. SID DONS. 

confirmed by the actress herself. So uncon- 
sciously does self-interest color our opinions. 

In saying that she no longer led the "vaga- 
bond " life of her early days, we mean that 
instead of wandering, as strolling players were 
obliged to do, from town to town, trusting to the 
chances of the hour, pitching their tent in a barn 
or an inn, and trusting to the caprice and humors 
of the public officials of the places they came to, 
she now secured fixed engagements at the best 
provincial theatres, which, owing to the difficul- 
ties and expenses of a journey to London, were 
attended during the season by many of the 
county magnates, and the lesser stars following 
and surrounding the brighter planets. 

Bath stood at the head of these provincial 
theatres. York, Hull, Manchester, Hereford, 
Liverpool, Worcester, and many others came 
next in order of merit. 

The first engagement she received on quitting 
Drury Lane was at Birmingham, where she 
remained the whole summer of 1776, acting 
parts of the highest standing. Here she enjoyed 
the privilege of having Henderson as coadjutor, 
who, Campbell tells us, was so struck by her 
merits, that he wrote immediately to Palmer, the 
manager of the Bath theatre, urging him in the 
strongest terms to engage her. Palmer was 



WORK. 65 

unable to follow this advice just then, but did so 
later. 

The only direct communication we have from 
her during this time of work and struggle is a 
letter to Mrs. Inchbald, whose friendship with 
the Kembles had begun in 1776. Charges were, 
indeed, "tremendous circumstances" to her 
who, at the best of times in those early days, 
only enjoyed a salary of three pounds a week. 
Her observations about " exotics " are amusing, 
she herself figuring so largely later in that char- 
acter, to the dread of all provincial actresses : — 

"I played 'Hamlet' in Liverpool, to near a 
hundred pounds, and wish I had taken it to 
myself ; but the fear of charges, which, you 
know, are most tremendous circumstances, per- 
suaded me to take part of a benefit with Barry, 
for which I have since been very much blamed ; 
but he, I believe, was very much satisfied — and, 
in short, so am I. Strange resolutions are 
formed in our theatrical ministry; one of them I 
think very prudent — this little rogue Harry is 
chattering to such a degree, I scarce know what 
I am about. [Her eldest boy was then four.] 
But to proceed : Our managers have determined 
to employ no more exotics ; they have found 
that Miss Yonge's late visit to us (which you 
must have heard of) has rather hurt than done 
5 



66 MRS. SIDDONS. 

them service ; so that Liverpool must, from this 
time forth, be content with such homely fare as 
we small folks can furnish to its delicate sense. 
.... Present our kind compliments to Mr. 
and Mrs. Wilkinson, and tell the former I never 
mention his name but I wish to be regaling with 
him over a pinch of his most excellent Irish 
snuff, which I have never had a snift of but in 
idea since I left York." It is difficult to con- 
ceive the divine Melpomene taking snuff, though 
she did so all her life ; but in that day it was the 
fashion for every one to snuff. 

Early in 1777 she played at Manchester, where 
she made so great an impression that the shrewd 
and enterprising Tate Wilkinson, lessee of the 
York theatre, offered her an engagement. Her 
range of characters now included "The Grecian 
Daughter," Alicia, Jane Shore, Matilda, Lady 
Townley — all the tearful dramas of the day, 
which the young actress brought into fashion 
instead of the artificial comedy of the preceding 
age. At Manchester, we are astonished to hear, 
one of her most applauded characters was 
11 Hamlet." 

Her playing this great play in strolling days, 
as Mr. Bate tells us, "was most likely only a 
girlish freak." Her acting it now shows that 
she was cultivating her dramatic genius in every 



WORK. 67 

direction, working out of the restricted domain 
of Jane Shore, the Grecian Daughter, and 
Calista, no longer content to move her audience 
by her pathos and grace, but determined to 
bring them to her feet by her intellectual power. 
It is curious that, though many years after- 
wards she acted it in Dublin, she never could be 
persuaded to appear in it in London. Her dis- 
like to anything approaching male attire was 
almost morbid, and even in Rosalind she vastly 
amused the town by her costume — " mysterious 
nondescript garments," that were neither male 
nor female, devised to satisfy a prudery which 
in such a character was wholly out of place. 

At York, where Mrs. Siddons acted for Tate 
Wilkinson, the manager, from Easter to Whit- 
suntide 1777, she enjoyed an unequivocal suc- 
cess. " All lifted up their eyes with astonish- 
ment that such a voice, such a judgment, and 
such acting, should have been neglected by a 
London audience, and by the first actor in the 
world ! " — another hit at Garrick made by Wil- 
kinson, who, generously aided by Garrick at the 
beginning of his career, had turned against his 
benefactor, and never missed an opportunity of 
detracting from his merits. 

The most critical local censors were lavish in 
their praise, though all remarked "how ill and 



68 MRS. SID DONS. 

pale she was, and wondered how she got through 
her parts." She acted the round of her charac- 
ters. Her attitudes and figure were vastly 
admired ; she was thought " so elegant." Wil- 
kinson endeavored to secure her permanently as 
a member of his company, and in his Memoirs 
tells how he endeavored to tempt her by fine 
clothes, providing for one of her parts a most 
"elegant sack-back, all over silver trimmings." 
He did not understand any more than Garrick 
the nature of the woman with whom he had to 
deal. On the 17th May she acted Semiramis 
for her benefit, and the York season closed. 
Palmer, of the Bath theatre, had not forgotten 
Henderson's strong recommendation, and, find- 
ing at last an opening, he concluded an engage- 
ment with her. 

Bath was first in importance among the pro- 
vincial theatres. The audience, indeed, was 
very largely composed of the London " fashion- 
ables," who came to drink the waters ; no 
"sack-backs," therefore, "all over silver trim- 
mings," were allowed to interfere with her deter- 
mination, for, although in her petulant moments 
she was wont to declare that she preferred the 
country, and had been treated so cruelly in Lon- 
don she never would play there again, in her 



WORK. 69 

heart she was resolved to rule supreme on those 
boards she had once trod with Garrick. 

"I now made an engagement at Bath," she 
says in her Memoranda. " There my talents 
and industry were encouraged by the greatest 
indulgence, and, I may say, with some admira- 
tion. Tragedies which had been almost ban- 
ished, again resumed their proper interest ; but 
still I had the mortification of being obliged to 
personate many subordinate characters in com- 
edy, the first being, by contract, in the possession 
of another lady. To this I was obliged to 
submit, or to forfeit a portion of my salary, which 
was only three pounds a week. Tragedies were 
now becoming more and more fashionable. This 
was favorable to my cast of powers ; and, whilst 
I labored hard, I began to earn a distinct and 
flattering reputation. Hard labor, indeed, it 
was ! for, after the rehearsal at Bath, and on a 
Monday morning, I had to go and act at Bristol 
on the evening of the same day, and reaching 
Bath again, after a drive of twelve miles, I was 
obliged to represent some fatiguing part there 
on the Tuesday evening, When I recollect all 
this labor of mind and body, I wonder that I had 
strength and courage to support it, interrupted 
as I was by the care of a mother, and by the 
childish sports of my little ones, who were often 



70 MRS. SID DONS. 

most unwillingly hushed to silence for inter- 
rupting their mother's studies." 

From the pages of Horace Walpole, Mrs. 
Montagu, and Fanny Burney, we can bring the 
Pan-tiles of Tunbridge Wells or the parade at 
Bath, with their periwigs, powder-patches, and 
scandal, distinctly before us. Let us stand for a 
moment on the parade, and watch the note- 
worthy people, muses, poets, statesmen, who 
have assembled there, in 1778, to drink the 
water. Royal dukes and princesses might be 
seen sauntering about, playing whist and E. O. 
in the evening, and taking " three glasses of 
water, a toasted roll, a Bath cake, and a cold 
walk in the mornings." Next to them, the cele- 
brated Duchess of Devonshire, loveliest of the 
lovely, gayest of the gay, attracts most notice. 
Her dazzling beauty, and those eyes the Irish 
laborer at the Fox Election said he could light 
his pipe at, are said to have taken away the 
readiness of hand and happiness of touch of the 
young painter "reported to have some talent," 
named Gainsborough, while painting her this 
year at Bath. 

After the Queen of Beauty comes the Queen 
of the Blues, Mrs. Montagu, " brilliant in clothes, 
solid in judgment, critical in talk, with the air 
and manner of a woman accustomed to being 



WORK. 



7* 



distinguished and of great parts." She writes in 
her letters of hating " ye higgledy-piggledy of 
the watering places," but seems happy enough 
combating for precedence " with the only other 
candidate for colloquial eminence " she thought 
worthy to be her peer — short, plump, brisk Mrs. 
Thale ; on the one side a placid, high-strained 
intellectual exertion, on the other an exuberant 
pleasantry, without the smallest malice in either. 
All the " Johnsonhood," as Horace Walpole 
calls the circle, musters round the two brilliant 
ladies, the Great Bear in the centre, for he and 
Boswell are stopping at the Pelican Inn. The 
conversation turns on " Evelina," the universal 
topic of the day ; Johnson declaring he had sat 
up all night to read it, much to Fanny Burney's 
delight, who, thirsting for flattery, sits with 
observant eyes and sarcastic little mouth, that 
belies the prudishly folded hands and prim air. 
Moving about from group to group is the bril- 
liant Sheridan, walking with his father and wife, 
and surrounded by the Linley family, to whom 
the lovely Cecilia is recounting the honors 
heaped on them in London. 

Unnoticed among all these great people is a 
little lame Scottish boy, destined to be the great- 
est of them all. Mrs. Siddons most likely saw 
and knew the little fellow then, who afterwards 



72 MRS. SID DONS. 

became so true a friend, for Walter Scott, in his 
autobiography, tells us he was frequently taken 
to Bath for his lameness, and, after he had 
bathed in the morning, got through a reading- 
lesson at the old dame's near the parade, and 
had had a drive over the downs, his uncle would 
sometimes take him to the old theatre. On one 
occasion, witnessing "As You Like It," his in- 
terest was so great that, in the middle of the 
wrestling scene in the first act, he screamed 
out, " A'n't they brothers ? " 

Amongst this " higgledy-piggledy," we are 
suddenly struck by a beautiful young creature, 
whose arrival seems to cause a flutter among 
the fashionables. She is accompanied by a 
handsome fair man and two beautiful children. 
This is the new actress who is turning every 
head. From Lawrence's colored crayon draw- 
ing, done of her during this stay at Bath, we 
can form a distinct idea of what she was like. 
He has drawn her three-quarter face, black velvet 
hat and plume, white muslin cavalier tie, brown 
riding spencer with big buttons and lappels 
turned back. Under the shadow of the hat is 
the refined, noble face, with delicate, arched 
eyebrows, aquiline nose, finely modelled mouth, 
and round cleft chin. She is not yet the tragic 
muse of Reynolds, nor the full-orbed, fashion- 



WORK. J$ 

able beauty of Gainsborough, but a lovely young 
Diana, with frank, large, out-looking eyes, and 
a pretty air of defiance and resolution, the 
brightness undimmed by the anxiety and hard 
work of later days. The young beauty is evi- 
dently determined to conquer the universe. 

It was a world strangely at issue with her 
own ideas into which she had stepped — a dandi- 
fied, ceremonious world, full of witty and wicked 
ladies and gentlemen, who played cards and 
backed horses ; but, mercifully for her, a world 
at the same time full of childish enthusiasm, an 
age of pallor and fainting and hysterics. Grown 
men and women sitting up at night weeping and 
laughing over the woes and escapades of Clarissa 
Harlowe and Evelina ; ladies writing to Rich- 
ardson : " Pray, sir, make Lovelace happy ; you 
can so easily do it. Pray reform him ! Will 
you not save a soul ?" 

The same vivid interest was taken in dramatic 
situations. It was a common thing for women 
— and, indeed, men also — to be carried out 
fainting ; and as to the crying and sobbing, it 
was generally audible all over the house. In a 
pathetic piece, Miss Burney describes two young 
ladies, who sat in a box above her, being both 
so much shocked at the death of Douglas that 
" they both burst into a loud fit of roaring, and 



74 MRS. SIDDONS. 

sobbed on afterwards for almost half the farce." 
Needless to say, therefore, the enthusiasm a 
beautiful young actress like Mrs. Siddons would 
create. It was not, however, immediate ; she 
was obliged, as we have seen, to personate sub- 
ordinate characters, and was obliged to act in 
comedy that did not suit her. 

Thursdays were the nights of the Cotillon 
balls at Bath, and of the assemblies at Lady 
Miller's, of Bath Easton vase celebrity, which 
are alluded to by Horace Walpole : "They hold 
a Parnassus fair every Thursday, before the 
balls, give out rhymes and themes, and all the 
flux at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman 
vase, dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles, 
receives the poetry, which is drawn out every 
festival. Six judges of these Olympic games 
retire and select the brightest compositions, 
which the respective successful ten candidates 
acknowledge." 

These events always emptied the theatre, and 
it was one of the young actress's grievances that 
for a time she was put forward — no doubt owing 
to the claims of the leading ladies — on these 
occasions. Gradually, however, her attraction 
increased, and on various occasions she suc- 
ceeded in drawing the frequenters of the balls to 
the theatre. She brought tragedies into fash- 



work. 75 

ion, and in " The Mourning Bride," Juliet, the 
Queen in " Hamlet," Jane Shore, Isabella, suc- 
ceeded in gaining the suffrages of her Bath audi- 
ence. 

We find the " tonish " young men, on the 
occasion of her benefit, presenting her with sixty 
guineas "in order to secure tickets, as they 
were afraid the demand for them would be so 
great by-and-bye." " Was it not elegant ? " she 
asks. One of these benefits produced to her 
one hundred and forty-six pounds — a handsome 
sum in those days. Before two years of her 
four years' stay at Bath had elapsed, we see her 
the favorite and friend of all the great people in 
the place. The Duchess of Devonshire showed 
her particular favor ; and subsequently, when 
her engagement at Drury Lane hung in the bal- 
ance, threw the weight of her influence, which 
was supreme, into the scale. 

We cannot help remarking, in spite of the 
accusations so frequently brought against her of 
her love of fine friends, that those who clustered 
about her in those early Bath days occupied the 
same position in her heart thirty years later. 
One of these, a Dr. Whalley, and his wife, were 
true and devoted friends all her life, and her let- 
ters to him contribute some of the most valuable 
materials we have for writing her life. Dr. 



j6 MRS. SIDDONS. 

Thomas Sedgwick Whalley was a gentleman of 
taste and good income, derived from his own 
private estates, and the rich stipend of an 
unwholesome Lincolnshire living, which a kind- 
hearted bishop had given him on condition he 
never resided on it. He enjoyed some literary 
celebrity as the author of a long narrative poem, 
V Edwy and Edilda." He occupied one of the 
finest houses on the Crescent; was intimate 
with Mrs. Piozzi ; corresponded with the volumi- 
nous letter-writer, Miss Seward ; and was, in 
fact, a fine specimen of the diletta?ite gentleman 
of the old school. 

Little Burney's sharp-pointed pen describes 
Whalley exactly : 

One of the clergymen was Mr. W , a young man who 

has a house on the Crescent, and is one of the best supporters 
of Lady Miller's vase at Bath Easton. He is immensely tall, 
thin, and handsome, but affected, delicate, and sentimentally 
pathetic ; and his conversation about his own " feelings," about 
" amiable motives," and about the wind — which, at the Cres- 
cent, he said in a tone of dying horror, " blew in a manner 
really frightful 1 " — diverted me the whole evening. But Miss 
Thrale, not content with private diversion, laughed out at his 
expressions, till I am sure he perceived and understood her 
merriment. 

Later she mentions : — 

In the evening we had Mrs. Lambart, who brought us a tale 
called *' Edwy and Edilda," by the sentimental Mr. Whalley, 
and unreadably soft and tender and senseless is it. 



work. 77 

He was of the soft and tender school : Miss 
Seward's heart " vibrates to every sentence of 
his last charming letter ; " they indulge in the 
" communication of responsive ideas ; " and on 
leaving Bath she thus addresses him : — 

Edwy, farewell ! To Lichfield's darkened grove, 
With aching heart and rising sighs, I go. 

Yet bear a grateful spirit as I rove, 

For all of thine which balm'd a cureless woe. 

We cannot tell whether the " communication 
of responsive ideas " with so many fair ladies 
aroused Mrs. Whalley's jealousy ultimately, or 
whether incompatibility of temper was the 
cause, but in 1819 Mrs. Piozzi writes : — 

I hear wondrous tales of Doctor and Mrs. Whalley ; half the 
town saying he is the party aggrieved, and the other half 
lamenting the lady's fate. Two wiseacres sure, old acquaint- 
ances of forty years' standing, and both past seventy years 
old 1 

When Mrs. Siddons first knew them at Bath, 
there was evidently nothing of that sort. She 
writes to him from Bristol : — 

" I cannot express how much I am honored 
by your friendship ; therefore you must not 
expect words, but as much gratitude as can 
inhabit the bosom of a human being. I hope, 
with a fervency unusual upon such occasions, 
that you will not be disappointed in your expec- 



7 8 MRS. SID DONS. 

tations of me to-night ; but sorry am I to say I 
have often observed that I have performed worst 
when I most ardently wished to do better than 
ever. Strange perverseness ! And this leads 
me to observe — as I believe I may have done 
before — that those who act mechanically are 
sure to be in some sort right ; while we who 
trust to nature — if we do not happen to be in 
the humor (which, however, Heaven be praised ! 
seldom happens) — are dull as anything can be 
imagined, because we cannot feign. But I hope 
Mrs. Whalley will remember that it was your 
commendations which she heard, and judge of 
your praises by the benevolent heart from which 
they proceed, more than as standards of my 
deserving. Luckily I have been able to pro- 
cure places in the front row, next to the stage- 
box, on the left hand of you as you go in. These, 
I hope, will please you." 

Meantime, Henderson, who had before so 
strongly recommended her to the Bath manager, 
came down for one or two nights and acted Ben- 
edict to her Beatrice, returned to London so 
full of her praises that the managers of Drury 
Lane made her the offer of an engagement in 
the summer of 1782. " After my former dis- 
missal from thence," she says later in her Mem- 



work. 79 

oranda, " it may be imagined that this was to 
me a triumphant moment." 

At the same time, she was loth to leave her 
appreciative friends at Bath, and, curiously 
enough, hesitated at the last moment about 
accepting ; so that Whalley's congratulatory 
poem on her engagement at Drury Lane, con- 
tributed to Lady Miller's " Roman Vase," was a 
little premature. At last, however, her depart- 
ure was formally announced, and she took her 
farewell benefit. She acted in the " Distressed 
Mother " and " The Devil to Pay," and then 
came forward and recited some lines of her own 
composition, of which we give the reader only a 
short sample, as the " Virgin Muse" does not 
soar very high : — 

Have I not raised some expectation here ? 

11 Wrote by herself ? What ! authoress and player ? 

True, we have heard her " — thus I guess'd you'd say— 

" With decency recite another's lay ; 

But never heard, nor ever could we dream, 

Herself had sipp'd the Heliconian stream." 

Perhaps you farther said — Excuse me, pray, 

For thus supposing all that you might say — 

" What will she treat of in this same address ? 

Is it to show her learning? Can you guess?" 

Here let me answer : No. Far different views 

Possess'd my soul, and fired my virgin Muse. 

'Twas honest gratitude, at whose request 

Sham'd be the heart that will not do its best J 



80 MRS. SIDDONS. 

She then informs them they must part; that, 
if only she meets as much kindness elsewhere, 

Envy, o'ercome, will hurl her pointless dart, 
And critic gall be shed without its smart. 

Nothing would drag her from Bath, she says, 
but one thing ; here she went to the wing and 
led forward her children : — 

These are the moles that bear me from your side, 
Where I was rooted — where I could have died. 

The moles now numbered three, her second 
daughter and third child, Maria, having been 
born on 1st July, 1779. 

Stand forth, ye elves ! and plead your mother's cause, 

Ye little magnets, whose soft influence draws 

Me from a point where every gentle breeze 

Wafted my bark to happiness and ease — 

Sends me adventurous on a larger main, 

In hopes that you may profit by my gain. 

Have I been hasty ? Am I, then, to blame ? 

Answer, all ye who own a parent's name ! 

Thus have I tired you with an untaught muse, 

Who for your favor still most humbly sues; 

That you for classic learning will receive 

My soul's best wishes, which I freely give — 

For polished periods round, and touched with art, 

The fervent offering of my grateful heart. 

So Mrs. Siddons made her bow. When she 



WORK. 8 1 

next appeared at Bath it was as the greatest 
tragic actress then on the stage. 

Towards the end of August, she set out deter- 
mined to make her way slowly to London, acting 
at various country theatres as she went along. 
Her letters written to the Whalleys are full of 
fun, and show she had the pen of a ready writer. 

" You will be pleased to hear," she says, " that 
Mrs. Carr was very civil to me — gave me a com- 
fortable bed, and I slept very well. We were 
five of us in the machine, all females but one, a 
youth of about sixteen, and the most civilized 
being you can conceive — a native of Bristol, too. 

" One of the ladies was, I believe verily, a lit- 
tle insane. Her dress was the most peculiar, 
and manner the most offensive, I ever remem- 
ber to have met with ; her person was taller and 
more thin than you can imagine ; her hair 
raven black, drawn as tight as possible over her 
cushion before and behind ; and at the top of 
her head was placed a solitary fly-cap of the last 
century, composed of materials of about twenty 
sorts, and as dirty as the ground ; her neck, 
which was a thin scrag of a quarter of a yard 
long, and the color of a walnut, she wore uncov- 
ered, for the solace of all beholders ; her Circas- 
sian was an olive-colored cotton of three several 
sorts, about two breadths wide in the skirt, and 
6 



82 MRS. SID DONS. 

tied up exactly in the middle in one place only. 
She had a black petticoat spotted with red, and 
over that a very thin white muslin one, with a 
long black gauze apron, and without the least 
hoop. I never in my life saw so odd an appear- 
ance ; and my opinion was not singular, for 
wherever we stopped she inspired either mirth 
or amazement, but was quite innocent of it her- 
self. On taking her seat among us at Bristol, 
she flew into a violent passion on seeing one of 
the windows down. I said I would put it up, if 
she pleased. ' To be sure,' said she ; ' I have no 
ambition to catch my death ! ' No sooner had 
she done with me, but she began to scold the 
woman who sat opposite to her for touching her 
foot. 'You have not been used to riding in a 
coach, I fancy, good woman.' She met in this 
lady a little more spirit than she found in me, 
and we were obliged to her for keeping this 
unhappy woman in tolerable order for the 
remainder of the day. Bless me ! I had almost 
forgot to tell you that I was desired to make tea 
at breakfast. Vain were my endeavors to please 
this strange creature. She had desired to have 
her tea in a basin, and I followed her directions 
as near as it was possible in the making her 
tea ; but she had no sooner tasted it than she 
bounced to the window and threw it out, declar- 



WORK. 83 

ing she had never met with such a set of awk- 
ward, ill-bred people. What could be expected 
in a stage-coach, indeed ? She snatched the can- 
ister from me, poured a great quantity into the 
basin, with sugar, cream and water, and drank it 
all together. Did you ever hear of anything so 
strange ? When we sat down to dinner, she 
seemed terrified to death lest anybody should 
eat but herself. 

"The remaining part of our journey was made 
almost intolerable by her fretfulness. One min- 
ute she was screaming out lest the coachman 
should overturn us ; she was sure he would, 
because she would not give him anything for 
neglecting to keep her trunk dry; and though it 
was immoderately hot, we were obliged very 
often to sit with the windows up, for she had 
been told that the air was pestilential after sun- 
set, and that, however people liked it, she did 
not choose to hazard her life by sitting with the 
windows open. All were disposed, for the sake 
of peace, to let her have her own way, except 
the person whom we were really obliged to for 
quieting her every now and then. She had been 
handsome, but was now, I suppose, sixty years 
old. I pity her temper, and am sorry for her 
situation, which I have set down as that of a 
disappointed old maid. 



84 MRS. SID DONS. 

"At about seven o'clock we arrived at Dor- 
chester. On my stepping out of the coach, a 
gentleman very civilly gave me his hand. Who 
should it be but Mr. Siddons ! who was come on 
purpose to meet me. He was very well, and the 
same night I had the pleasure of seeing my dear 
boy, more benefited by the sea than can be con- 
ceived. He desires me to thank Mr. Whalley 
for the fruit, which he enjoyed very much. We 
have got a most deplorable lodging, and the 
water and the bread are intolerable ; 'but travel- 
lers must be content.' Mr. Whalley was so good 
as to be interested about my bathing. Is there 
anything I could refuse to do at his or your 
request ? I intend to bathe to-morrow morning, 
cost what pain it will. I expected to have found 
more company here. 

" I went to Dorchester yesterday to dine with 
Mr. Beach, who is on a visit to a relation, and 
has been laid up with the gout, but is recovering 
very fast. He longs to see Langford, and I am 
anxious to have him see it. I suppose Mr. 
Whalley has heard when Mr. Pratt comes. [Mr. 
Pratt was a Bath bookseller who had given her 
lessons in elocution ; and afterwards, when she 
was not allowed by the manager of Drury Lane 
to act in his tragedy, declared he would write an 
ode on Ingratitude and dedicate it to her.] Pray 



WORK. 85 

present the kindest wishes of Mr. Siddons, little 
Harry, and myself. I hope Mr. Whalley will do 
me the favor to choose the ribbon for my watch- 
string. I should like it as near the color of little 
dear Paphy's ear as possible. I did not very 
well comprehend what Lady Mary (Knollys) 
said about the buckles'. Will you please to give 
her my respectful compliments, and say I beg 
her pardon for having deferred speaking to her 
on that subject to so awkward a time, but hope 
my illness the last day I had the honor of seeing 
her ladyship will be my excuse. I hope I shall 
be favored with a line from you, and that her 
ladyship will explain herself more fully then. 
Harry has just puzzled me very much. When 
going to eat some filberts after dinner, I told 
him you desired he would not eat them ; ' But,' 
says he, ' what would you have done if Mr. 
Whalley had desired you would ? ' I was at a 
stand for a little while, and at last he found a 
means to save me from my embarrassment by 
saying, ' But you know Mr. Whalley would not 
desire you to eat them if he thought they would 
hurt you.' 'Very true, Harry,' says I ; so it 
ended there." 

The following shows that the engagement 
with the London manager was not yet com- 
pletely ratified ; she was probably standing out 



86 MRS. SID DONS. 

for better terms, which he was not inclined to 
give. 

" I look forward with inexpressible delight to 
our snug parties, and I have the pleasure to in- 
form you that I shall not go to London this win- 
ter. Mr. Linley thinks my making a partial 
appearance will neither benefit myself nor the 
proprietors. Mrs. Crawford threatens to leave 
them very often, he says, but I suppose she 
knows her own interest better. I should sup- 
pose she has a very good fortune, and I should 
be vastly obliged to her if she would go and live 
very comfortably upon it. I'll give her leave to 
stay and be of as much service to my good and 
dear friend's tragedy as she possibly can, and 
then let her retire as soon as she pleases. I 
hope I shall not tire you ; Mr. Siddons is afraid 
I shall, and in compliance to him (who, with me, 
returns his grateful acknowledgments for all 
your kindnesses), I conclude with, I hope, an 
unnecessary assurance, that I am ever your 
grateful and affectionate servant, 

S. Siddons. 

" P. S. — Please to present our joint compli- 
ments to Mr. Whalley, Mrs. Whalley, and Miss 
Squire, and, in short, the whole circle, not for- 
getting Mrs. Reeves, to whom I am much 
obliged. In an especial manner, I beg to be 



WORK. 87 

remembered to the cruel beauty, Sappho. She 
knows her power, and therefore treats me like a 
little tyrant. Adieu ! God for ever bless you 
and yours ! The beach here is the most beau- 
tiful I ever saw." 

She alludes above to Whalley's tragedy " Mor- 
val," which was acted later with her as heroine. 
It was a complete failure, and was only per- 
formed three nights. 

Mrs. Siddons became fond of Weymouth, and 
often returned there in after years. Miss Bur- 
ney, in her "Memoirs," tells us of being there 
once on duty with the King and Royal Family. 
They met the actress, who made a sweeping 
curtsey, walking on the sands with her children. 
The King commanded a performance at the 
theatre, but the Royal Family having gone away 
on an expedition, did not get back in time, and 
kept every one waiting. The King and Queen 
arriving at last, sent a page home for their wigs, 
so as not to keep the audience waiting any 
longer. 



CHAPTER V. 

SUCCESS. 

At last all difficulties were arranged between 
the manager of Drury Lane and Mrs. Siddons, 
and the day dawned on which she was again 
destined to make her bow before a London audi- 
ence. It was the ioth October, 1782. Impor- 
tant changes had taken place in the theatre since 
the fatal December seven years before. The 
proud pre-eminence of Drury Lane had passed 
away ; the magic circle of theatrical genius that 
Garrick kept together by his personal influence 
had been broken up and dispersed under Sheri- 
dan's erratic management ; Mrs. Abington, Mrs. 
Yates, and Miss Young had deserted to other 
companies. So that the fine selection of plays, 
ever ready with the same set of players at hand 
to act them, ensuring a perfection never achieved 
before, were now mounted without care or 
thought, and acted by whomever the capricious 
manager chose to select for the moment. Old 
trained hands, accustomed to the methodical 
rule of Garrick, would not submit to be trans- 
(88) 



SUCCESS. 89 

ferred from part to part, receiving no due notice 
beforehand, and, above all, they would not sub- 
mit to the irregularity in the money arrange- 
ments which had begun almost immediately 
after the impecunious Irishman took the reins 
of government. There were hardly any names 
of note now to be seen on the bills except those 
of Smith, Palmer, and King, and they openly 
talked of deserting the sinking ship. 

There is something almost heroic, therefore, 
in the appearance of the ycung actress on the 
boards of Drury Lane at this particular juncture. 
Alone and unaided, against enormous odds, she 
saved the famous theatre, endeared to every 
lover of dramatic art, from artistic and financial 
ruin. She had hitherto proved herself to have 
indomitable industry and energy, to have all the 
qualities of a hard-working, painstaking artist ; 
now she was suddenly to flash forth in all the 
splendor of her genius and power. And yet how 
simple and womanly she remained. There was 
no undue reliance on her own gifts, in spite of 
the indiscriminate praise that had been heaped 
on her at Bath by too zealous friends. She 
turned a deaf ear to Miss Seward — " all aster- 
isks and exclamations," and to Dr. Whalley — 
"all sighs and admiration ;." but listened to the 
wise suggestions of Mr. Linley and of old Sheri- 



90 



MRS. SIDDONS. 



dan, the father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 
himself a retired actor with full knowledge of 
the stage and its requirements. She and they 
were afraid her voice was not equal to filling a 
large London theatre. " But we soon had reason 
to think," she tells us, "that the bad construc- 
tion of the Bath theatre, and not the weakness 
of my voice was the cause of our mutual fears." 
Isabella, in Southerne's pathetic play of "The 
Fatal Marriage," was the part Sheridan recom- 
mended her to choose for her first appearance, 
and the selection showed his appreciative knowl- 
edge both of her powers and of the audience she 
was to act to ; the combined tenderness, grief 
and indignation showing the variety and range 
of expression of which she was capable. Ham- 
ilton painted a picture of her in this part, dressed 
in deep black, holding her boy by the hand, and 
appealing for help to her father-in-law, that even 
now brings the tears to one's eyes as one looks 
at it. Her son Henry, then eight years old, 
acted with her. It is said that, observing his 
mother at rehearsal in the agonies of the dying 
scene, he took the fiction for reality, and burst 
into a flood of tears. She herself for the fort- 
night before her appearance suffered from ner- 
vous agitation more than can be imagined. The 



SUCCESS. 91 

whole account of her mental state is best told in 
her own words. 

" No wonder I was nervous before the memo- 
rable day on which hung my own fate and that 
of my little family. I had quitted Bath, where 
all my efforts had been successful, and I feared 
lest a second failure in London might influence 
the publie mind greatly to my prejudice, in the 
event of my return from Drury Lane, disgraced 
as I formerly had been. In due time I was sum- 
moned to the rehearsal of Isabella. Who can 
imagine my terror ? I feared to utter a sound 
above an audible whisper ; but by degrees enthu- 
siasm cheered me into a forgetfulness of my 
fears, and I unconsciously threw out my voice, 
which failed not to be heard in the remotest part 
of the house by a friend who kindly undertook 
to ascertain the happy circumstance. 

" The countenances, no less than tears and 
flattering encouragements of my companions, 
emboldened me more and more, and the second 
rehearsal was even more affecting than the first. 
Mr. King, who was then manager, was loud in 
his applause. This second rehearsal took place 
on the 8th October, 1782, and on the evening of 
that day I was seized with a nervous hoarseness, 
which made me extremely wretched ; for I 
dreaded being obliged to defer my appearance 



9 2 



MRS. SID DONS. 



on the ioth, longing, as I most earnestly did, at 
least to know the worst. I went to bed, there- 
fore, in a state of dreadful suspense. Awaking 
the next morning, however, though out of rest- 
less, unrefreshing sleep, I found, upon speaking 
to my husband, that my voice was very much 
clearer. This, of course, was a great comfort to 
me ; and, moreover, the sun, which had been 
completely obscured for many days, shone 
brightly through my curtains. I hailed it, 
though tearfully, yet thankfully, as a happy 
omen ; and even now I am not ashamed of this 
(as it may, perhaps, be called) childish supersti- 
tion. On the morning of the ioth my voice 
was, most happily, perfectly restored ; and again 
1 the blessed sun slwjie brightly on me* On this 
eventful day my father arrived to comfort me, 
and to be a witness of my trial. He accompa- 
nied me to my dressing-room at the theatre. 
There he left me ; and I, in one of what I call 
my desperate tranquillities which usually impress 
me under terrific circumstances, there completed 
my dress, to the astonishment of my attendants, 
without uttering one word, though often sighing 
most profoundly." 

The young actress had been puffed industri- 
ously before by Sheridan in the play-bills, and 
he had, no doubt, circulated in his dexterous 



success. 93 

way that the cause of her previous failure had 
been Garrick's jealousy, as, indeed, we know he 
told the actress herself. 

There was a certain amount of expectancy 
and discussion. The house was full of all that 
was most brilliant, intellectual, and " tonish " in 
the London of that day. They had all come 
with powdered heads, gold-laced coats, and dia- 
mond-encircled throats to see a pretty woman 
act an affecting play ; but they were hardly pre- 
pared for the passion and pathos that for the 
time being shook them out of their artificial lace- 
handkerchief grief and bowed the powdered 
heads with genuine emotion. She was well 
supported — Smith, Palmer, Farren, Packer, and 
Mrs. Love acting with her, to say nothing of 
the veteran Roger Kemble, her father, who was, 
she tells us, little less agitated than herself. Her 
husband did not even venture to appear behind 
or before the scenes, his agitation was so great. 

"At length I was called to my fiery trial. 
The awful consciousness that one is the sole 
object of attention to that immense space, lined, 
as it were, with human intellect from top to 
bottom and all around, may, perhaps, be imag- 
ined, but can never be described, and can never 
be forgotten." 

If that night were never to pass from the 



94 MRS. SIDDONS. 

memory of Mrs. Siddons, neither would it ever 
pass from the memory of those who were pres- 
ent, or never be erased from the annals of the 
English stage, of which that beautiful and 
pathetic face and form was to be for many 
years the chief pride. 

The story of " Isabella, or the Fatal Mar- 
riage," is simple in construction, the interest 
centering in one figure, that of the heroine. 
Biron, son of a proud and worldly-minded man, 
marries a girl beneath him in station, contrary 
to his father's wish. A son is born, but Biron 
has hardly had time to rejoice over his birth 
before he is called away to the war, and, after 
some months, is reported as killed in battle. 
The wife appears with the child in the first 
scene, appealing in vain, for pity's sake, to her 
father-in-law to give her something to support 
her and the infant. As the bailiff enters to 
arrest her for debt, Villeroy (whose attentions 
she had repelled, grieving as she was for her 
husband) comes forward, frees her from the 
importunities of her creditors, and induces her, 
for her child's sake, to marry him. Hardly is 
she Villeroy's wife before Biron returns. In 
despair, she kills herself. 

There were moments, sentences that became 
traditional after this first night, as when, in 



success. 95 

reply to the question put to her on the arrival 
of the creditors as to what she would do, she 
answered, "Do! Nothing!" the very tone of 
the words told all her story. Miss Gordon 
fainted away on hearing the cry " Biron ! Biron ! " 
while we know Madame de StaeTs account in 
" Corinne " of the hysterical laugh when Isa- 
bella kills herself at the end. 

It was an extraordinary evening. The house 
was carried away in a storm of emotion ; men 
were not ashamed to sob, and many women 
went into violent hysterics. It is difficult, 
indeed, for us now to understand such agitation ; 
we fritter away our sentiment on the ordinary 
business of life : — 

The town in those days mostly lay 
Betwixt the tavern and the play. 

The penny press had not yet come within the 
radius of everyone, and men depended on the 
theatre for their fictitious excitement. A new 
play, a young actor or actress, were greater 
subjects of interest than even Mr. Pitt's or Mr. 
Fox's last speech, which they only heard of 
piecemeal. 

Mrs. Siddons had the good fortune still to 
play to audiences who were in the full enjoy- 
ment of their natural and critical powers of 



96 MRS. SID DONS. 

appreciation. She bent all her powers to calling 
forth their emotions. She touched them to the 
quick with her pathos and power. The audience 
surrendered at discretion to the summons of the 
young enchantress. Her own simple account of 
it all is very attractive ; and afterwards, in the 
history of her life, when a little hardness, or a 
rather too abrupt assertion of superiority, is to 
be regretted, we turn to this spontaneous, 
almost girlish account of her first triumph — 
through which we can see the smiles beaming, 
the tears glistening — with pleasure and relief. 

" I reached my own quiet fireside," she says, 
"on retiring from the scene of reiterated shouts 
and plaudits. I was half dead ; and my joy and 
thankfulness were of too solemn and overpower- 
ing a nature to admit of words, or even tears. 
My father, my husband, and myself sat down to 
a frugal neat supper in a silence uninterrupted 
except by exclamations of gladness from Mr. 
Siddons. My father enjoyed his refreshments, 
but occasionally stopped short, and, laying down 
his knife and fork, lifting up his venerable face, 
and throwing back his silver hair, gave way to 
tears of happiness. We soon parted for the 
night ; and I, worn out with continually broken 
rest and laborious exertion, after an hour's ret- 
rospection (who can conceive the intenseness 



success. 97 

of that reverie ?) fell into a sweet and profound 
sleep, which lasted to the middle of the next 
day. I arose alert in mind and body." 

And so the seven long years spent in temper- 
ing her genius, in working to gain strength and 
confidence, had borne their result, for we will not 
allow, as Mr. Fitzgerald says, that her present 
success was owing to the absence "of the 
restraint from the patronizing instruction of 
Garrick," or any other exterior circumstance. 
The change had come from within, not from 
without. Hers was essentially a genius of 
tardy growth ; both physically and mentally she 
did not reach her full development until the 
time when most actresses have enjoyed seven or 
eight years' success. She had worked, and, 
like all other workers, had reaped her reward ; 
though, unlike the common run of workers, 
having genius to back her, the reward she 
reaped was not only a temporary success, but 
fame. The memory of this night has been 
handed down to us in company with Garrick's 
first appearance in " Richard III." and Edmund 
Keen's in Shylock in 1814. 

The critics next day were unanimous in her 

praise. Some found the voice a little harsh, 

the passion a little too " restless and fluttering," 

but all were agreed that a great event had 

7 



q3 MRS- SIDDOXS. 

occurred in the dramatic world. It is of little 
use repeating the praise and criticism, all that 
can be done in a reviewal of her artistic life ; we 
are more interested in the personal history of 
the woman who had thus stirred up the waters 
that had threatened to become stagnant since 
the retirement of Garrick. It is natural for us 
rather to like to hear personal anecdotes of 
those who appear publicly before us than pages 
of hackneyed verbiage on their acting and ap- 
pearance. 

She wrote to Dr. Whalley one of those gen- 
uine, spontaneous letters that show how she was 
misunderstood by those who thought her hard 
and reserved : — " My dear, dear friend, the 
trying moment is passed, and I am crowned 
with a success which far exceeds even my hopes. 
God be praised ! I am extremely hurried, 
being obliged to dine at Linley's ; have been at 
the rehearsal of a new tragedy in prose, a most 
affecting play, in which I have a part I like very 
much. I believe my next character will be Zara 
in the " Mourning Bride." My friend Pratt was, 
I believe in my soul, as much agitated, and is as 
much rejoiced as myself. As I know it will give 
you pleasure, I venture to assure you I never in 
my life heard such peals of applause. I thought 
they would not have suffered Mr. Packer to end 



success. 99 

the play. Oh ! how I wished for you last night, 
to share a joy which was too much for me to 
bear alone ! My poor husband was so agitated 
that he durst not venture near the house. I 
enclose an epilogue which my good friend wrote 
for me, but which I could not, from excessive 
fatigue of mind and body, speak. Never, never 
let me forget his goodness to me. I have suf- 
fered tortures for (of ?) the unblest these three 
days and nights past, and believe I am not in 
perfect possession of myself at present ; there- 
fore excuse, my dear Mr. Whalley, the incorrect- 
ness of this scrawl, and accept it as the first 
tribute of love (after the first decisive moment) 
from your ever grateful and truly affectionate, 
S. Siddons." 

On the next night her success was even 
greater. The lobbies were lined with crowds of 
ladies and gentlemen " of the highest fashion.'* 
Lady Shelburne, Lord North the politician, 
Lady Essex, Mr. Sheridan and the Linley fam- 
ily weeping in his box, and hosts of others. 

She very soon began to reap substantial bene- 
fits from her success. 

" I should be afraid to say," she continues, 
"how many times "Isabella" was repeated 
successively, with still increasing favor. I was 
now highly gratified by a removal from my very 



100 MRS. SID DONS. 

indifferent and inconvenient dressing-room to 
one on the stage-floor, instead of climbing a 
long staircase; and this room (oh, unexpected 
happiness!) had been Garrick's dressing-room. 
It is impossible to conceive my gratification 
when I saw my own figure in the self-same 
glass which had so often reflected the face and 
form of that unequalled genius — not, perhaps, 
without some vague, fanciful hope of a little 
degree of inspiration from it." 

For eight nights the play was acted, and still 
every time she appeared the tide of popular 
favor ran higher. The box office was besieged 
by people wanting tickets, and the most ridicu- 
lous stories were told of the crush. Two old 
men stationed themselves to play chess outside 
at all hours, so as to secure tickets. Footmen 
lay stretched out asleep from dawn to buy 
places for their mistresses. Years afterwards, 
when at a great meeting at Edinburgh, Mrs. 
Siddons' health was proposed, Sir Walter Scott 
described the scene on one of those far-famed 
nights : the breakfasting near the theatre, wait- 
ing the whole day, the crushing at the doors at 
six o'clock, the getting in and counting their 
fingers till seven. But the very first step, the 
first word she uttered, was sufficient to over- 
pay everyone their weariness. The house was 



SUCCESS. IOI 

then electrified, and it was only from witnessing 
the effect of her genius that one could guess to 
what a pitch theatrical excellence may be car- 
ried. " Those young fellows," added Sir Walter, 
" who have only seen the setting sun of this 
distinguished performer, beautiful and serene as 
it is, must give us old fellows, who have seen its 
rise, leave to hold our heads a little higher." 

After " Isabella," the actress appeared in 
Murphy's " Grecian Daughter," a very indiffer- 
ent play, but one into which she breathed life 
and beauty by the power of her intuition. 

Not yet had the ninety-one of the past cen- 
tury dawned upon civilization with its Goddess 
of Reason, its scanty classic draperies, and its 
sandalled, barefooted beauties. Toupees, toques, 
bouffantes, hoops, sacques, and all the parapher- 
nalia of horse-hair, powder, pomatum, and pins 
were still in the ascendant. Not yet had Char- 
lotte Corday sacrificed her life for the liberty 
of her people ; but the muttering of the com- 
ing storm was heard in the distance, and, with 
the prescience of genius, the young actress 
anticipated its advent, and amazed her audience 
by the simple beauty of her classic draperies, 
and shook them with excitement by her rap- 
turous appeals to Liberty. 

There was a glorious enthusiasm about her 



102 MRS. SID DONS. 

delivery of certain portions. She came to 
perish or to conquer. She seemed to grow 
several inches taller. Her voice gained tones 
undreamt of before : — 

Shall he not tremble when a daughter comes, 
Wild with her griefs, and terrible with wrongs ? 
The Man of blood shall hear me ! Yes, my voice 
Shall mount aloft upon the whirlwind's wing. 

Her scorn was magnificent. Her reply to 
Dionysius, when he asks her to induce her 
husband to withdraw his army — 

Thinkest thou then 
So meanly of my Phocion ? Dost thou deem him 
Poorly wound up to a mere fit of valor, 
To melt away in a weak woman's tears ? 
Oh, thou dost little know him. 

At the last line, Boaden tells us, there was a 
triumphant hurry and enjoyment in her scorn, 
which the audience caught as electrical and 
applauded in rapture, for at least a minute : — 

A daughter's arm, fell monster, strikes the blow 1 
Yes, first she strikes — an injured daughter's arm 
Sends thee devoted to the infernal gods 1 

After this she acted Jane Shore. " Mrs. 
Siddons," as one of the critics remarked on this 
performance, " has the air of never being an 
actress ; she seems unconscious that there is a 
motley crowd called the pit waiting to applaud 



SUCCESS. 103 

her, or that a dozen fiddlers are waiting for her 
exit." Her "Forgive me, but forgive me," 
when asking pardon of her husband, convulsed 
the house with sobs. Crabb Robinson, while 
-witnessing this harrowing performance, burst 
into a peal of laughter, and, upon being removed, 
was found to be in strong hysterics. 

After Jane Shore, she appeared as Calista, 
Belvidera, and Zara. All were received with 
the same enthusiasm. 

On the 5th June she acted Isabella for the 
last time that season, having performed in all 
about eighty nights, and on six of them for the 
benefit of others ; and during that short time 
she may be said to have completely revolution- 
ized the English stage. Nothing now was 
applauded but tragedy. The farces which 
before had won a laugh, were now not listened 
to. The young actress so completely depressed 
the spirits of the audience, that the best comic 
actor seemed unable to raise them. Already 
she was preparing the way for the stately 
solemnity of John Kemble and the Eevival of 
Shakespearean Tragedy. 

The town went " born mad," as Horace 
Walpole said, after her. The papers wrote 
about her continually, her dress, her movements. 
Nothing else seemed to have the same interest 



104 MRS ' SID DONS. 

Her salary, originally five pounds a week, was 
raised to twenty pounds before the end of the 
season, and her first benefit realized eight hun- 
dred pounds. 

On this latter occasion she addressed a letter 
to the public : — 

" Mrs. Siddons would not have remained so 
long without expressing the high sense she had 
of the great honors done her at her late benefit, 
but that, after repeated trials, she could not find 
words adequate to her feelings, and she must at 
present be content with the plain language of a 
grateful mind ; that her heart thanks all her 
benefactors for the distinguished and, she fears, 
too partial encouragement which they bestowed 
on this occasion. She is told that the splendid 
appearance on that night, and the emoluments 
arising from it, exceed anything ever recorded 
on a similar account in the annals of the Eng- 
lish stage ; but she has not the vanity to imagine 
that this arose from any superiority over many of 
her predecessors or some of her contemporaries. 
She attributes it wholly to that liberality of sen- 
timent which distinguishes the inhabitants of this 
great metropolis from those of any other in the 
world. They know her story — they know that for 
many years, by a strange fatality she was confined 
to move in a narrow sphere, in which the re- 



SUCCESS. 105 

wards attendant on her labors were proportion- 
ally small. With a generosity unexampled, they 
proposed at once to balance the account, and 
pay off the arrears due, according to the rate, 
the too partial rate, at which they valued her 
talents. She knows the danger arising from 
extraordinary and unmerited favors, and will 
carefully guard against any approach of pride, 
too often their attendant. Happy shall she 
esteem herself, if by the utmost assiduity, and 
constant exertion of her poor abilities, she shall 
be able to. lessen, though hopeless ever to dis- 
charge, the vast debt she owes the public." 

Mrs. Siddons was always too fond of taking 
the public into her confidence. Everything in 
this letter can be taken for granted ; and it 
would have been more dignified to have kept 
silence. 

More pleasing and natural are the letters 
written to her friends. She wrote thus to Dr. 
Whalley about this time : — 

"Just at this moment are you, my dear Sir, 
sitting down to supper, and ' every guest's a 
friend.' Oh ! that I were with you, but for one 
half-hour. ' Oh ! God forbid ! ' says my dear 
Mrs. Whalley; ' for he would talk so loud and 
so fast, that he would throw himself into a fever, 
and die of unsatisfied curiosity into the bargain/ 



106 MRS. SID DONS. 

Do I flatter myself, my dear Sir? Oh no ! you 
have both done me the honor to* assure me that 
you love me, and I would not forego the blessed 
idea for the world ... I did receive all your 
letters, and thank you for them a thousand 
times. One line of them is worth all the accla- 
mations of ten thousand shouting theatres." 

And so closes this wonderful year in the great 
actress's life — the one to which she always 
looked back as the climax of her happiness and 
good fortune. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH. 

Irishmen have a natural theatrical instinct, 
and Dublin, at the time of which we write, was to 
a certain degree valued as a censor in dramatic 
affairs as highly as London. A Dublin audience 
often ventured to dissent from the judgments of 
the metropolis, and, as in the case of Mrs. Pritch- 
ard, who, Campbell quaintly tells us, " electrified 
the Irish with disappointment," to entirely 
reverse them. Most of the best Drury Lane 
players had begun their career at the Smock 
Alley theatre, and many of them had Irish blood 
in their veins. The theatre was the finest in the 
kingdom next to Drury Lane, boasting the inno- 
vation of a drop scene, representing the Houses 
of Parliament, instead of the conventional green 
curtain. 

The same causes which placed the provincial 
towns of England in an important position, so 
far as social and dramatic affairs were concerned, 
operated still more effectually in the case of 
Dublin. To cross to London in those days was 

(107) 



108 MRS. SIDDONS. 

as long and tedious a journey as to go to New 
York in ours ; and none even of the nobility 
thought of doing so every year. The vice-regal 
court was, therefore, really a court, surrounded 
by a certain amount of brilliancy and splendor. 
Ever since the days of Peg Woffington and the 
Miss Gunnings, Irish beauties had dared to set 
the fashion ; and we read in a letter written from 
Dublin, by a leader of fashion of the day, that it 
is of no use English women coming over unless 
they are prepared to " make their waists of the 
circumference of two oranges, no more ; " their 
" heads a foot high, exclusive of feathers, and 
stretching to a pent-house of most horrible pro- 
jection behind, the breadth from wing to wing 
considerably broader than your shoulders ; and 
as many different things in your cap as in Noah's 
ark. . . . Verily," the lady ends, " I never did 
see such monsters as the heads now in vogue ; 
I am a monster, too, but a moderate one." 

Round the small court fluttered young equer- 
ries who wrote plays, and were devoted to the 
drama. Actors and actresses themselves, if at 
all within the pale of respectability, were admit- 
ted to the vice-regal circle. Mrs. Inchbald was 
intimate with many of the fashionable and liter- 
ary ladies. Daly, the manager of the theatre, 
was a regular habitue of the " Castle ;" and John 



DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH. 109 

Kemble, who had arrived in Ireland some time 
before his sister, had been introduced by the 
equerry Jephson to the "set," including Tighe, 
Courtenay, and others. 

All this society was thrown into a ferment of 
excitement when it was announced that the 
beautiful young actress, who had turned all 
heads in London, was coming to Dublin. Kem- 
ble was interviewed and pestered with inquiries 
on the subject. Indeed, his prestige for the 
time was vastly increased by his relationship. 
At a dinner at the Castle, Lord Inchiquin gave 
as a toast, " The matchless Mrs. Siddons," and 
sent her brother a ring containing her miniature 
set in diamonds. 

Daly had gone over himself to engage her ; 
and it was said she had refused all provincial 
offers in England for the sake of winning the 
hearts of the Irish critics. All seemed propi- 
tious, and the way" prepared for the coming of 
the conquering heroine. Events, however, did 
not turn out as expected. There, where the 
vivacious, impudent, good-natured Peg Woffing- 
ton, with her " bad " voice and swaggering way, 
became a popular idol, the queenly Siddons, 
with her imperious, tragic manner, extorted 
praise for her acting, no doubt, but never won 
their hearts. In spite of the Irish blood in her 



110 MRS. SID DONS. 

veins, she had no fellow-feeling for the people ; 
and an antagonism sprang up between her and 
her Dublin audience from the first. She disliked 
the dirt, ostentation, insincerity, and frivolity of 
Irishmen, and refused to acknowledge their kind- 
heartedness and genuine artistic appreciation. 

By her letters we can see the impression the 
country made on her. She started in the begin- 
ning of July, accompanied by a small party, 
which consisted of Brereton, her husband, and 
her sister. On the 14th she writes to her friend 
Whalley :— 

" I thank you a thousand and a thousand times 
for your letter; but you don't mention having 
heard from me since you left England. We 
rejoice most sincerely that you are arrived with- 
out any material accident, without any danger- 
ous ones I mean, for, to be sure, some of them 
were very materially entertaining Oh! howl 
laugh whenever the drowsy adventure comes 
across my imagination, for ' more was meant 
than met the ear.' I am sure I would have given 
the world to have seen my dear Mrs. Whalley 
upon the little old tub. How happy you are in 
your descriptions ! So she was very well; then 
very jocular she must be. I think her conver- 
sation, thus enthroned and thus surrounded, 
must have been the highest treat in all the world. 



DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH. 1 1 1 

Some parts of your tour must have been enchant- 
ing. How good it was of you to wish me a par- 
taker of your pastoral dinner ! Be assured, my 
dear, dear friends, no one can thank you more 
sincerely, or be more sensible of the honor of 
your regard, though many may deserve it better. 
What a comfortable thing to meet with such 
agreeable people ! But society and converse 
like yours and dear Mrs. Whalley's must very 
soon make savages agreeable. How did poor 
little Paphy bear it ? Did she remonstrate in 
her usual melting tones ? I am sure she was 
very glad to be at rest, which does not happen 
in a carriage, I remember, for any length of 
time. I can conceive nothing so provoking or 
ridiculous as the Frenchman's politeness, and 
poor Vincent's perplexity. You will have heard, 

long ere this reaches you, that our sweet D 

is safely delivered of a very fine girl, which, I 
know, will give you no small pleasure. Now 
for myself. Our journey was delightful ; the 
roads through Wales present you with mount- 
ains unsurmountable, the grandest and most 
beautiful prospects to be conceived ; but I want 
your pen to describe them. 

"We got very safe to Holyhead, and then I 
felt as if some great event was going to take 
place, having never been on the sea. I was 



112 MRS. SID DONS. 

awed, but not terrified ; feeling myself in the 
hands of a great and powerful God ' whose mercy 
is over all His works.' The sea was particu- 
larly rough ; we were lifted mountains high, and 
Bank again as low in an instant. Good God ! 
how tremendous, how wonderful ! A pleasing 
terror took hold on me, which it is impossible to 
lescribe, and I never felt the majesty of the 
Divine Creator so fully before. I was dread- 
fully sick, and so were my poor sister and Mr. 
Brereton. Mr. Siddons was pretty well ; and 
here, my dear friend, let me give you a little 
wholesome advice : allways (you see I have 
forgot to spell) go to bed the instant you go 
on board, for by lying horizontally, and keeping 
very quiet, you cheat the sea of half its influ- 
ence. We arrived in Dublin the 16th June, 
half-past twelve at night. There is not a tavern 
or a house of any kind in this capital city of a 
rising kingdom, as they call themselves, that 
will take a woman in ; and, do you know, I was 
obliged, after being shut up in the Custom-house 
officer's room, to have the things examined, 
which room was more like a dungeon than any- 
thing else — after staying here above an hour 
and a half, I tell you, I was obliged, sick and 
weary as I was, to wander about the streets on 
foot (for the coaches and chairs were all gone off 



DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH. 1 1 3 

the stands) till almost two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, raining, too, as if heaven and earth were 
coming together. A pretty beginning! thought 
I; but these people are a thousand years behind 
us in every respect. At length Mr. Brereton, 
whose father had provided a bed for him on his 
arrival, ventured to say he would insist on hav- 
ing a bed for us at the house where he was to 
sleep. Well, we got to this place, and the lady 
of the house vouchsafed, after many times tell- 
ing us that she never took in ladies, to say we 
should sleep there that night." 

The actress's first appearance was made in 
"Isabella," on the 21st June, 1783. The thea- 
tre was crowded to suffocation, and guineas and 
half-guineas were paid for seats in the pit and 
gallery ; but after the first night the enthusi- 
asm seemed to die away, and Mrs. Crawford, at 
Crow Street Theatre, who had been completely 
dethroned «by Mrs. Siddons in London, now 
boldly ventured to come forward in opposition 
to her rival, and, to her own astonishment, as 
well as that of everyone else, soon commanded 
larger houses. The critics also soon began their 
attacks, taking the form of ridicule, a method of 
warfare very trying to a person of her proud, 
sensitive nature. 

" On Saturday, Mrs. Siddons, about whom all 



114 MRS. SID DONS. 

the world has been talking, exposed her beautiful, 
adamantine, soft, and comely person, for the 
first time, yi the Theatre Royal, Smock Alley. 
The house was crowded with hundreds more 
than it could hold, with thousands of admiring 
spectators that went away without a sight. She 
was nature itself ; she was the most exquisite 
work of art. Several fainted even before the 
curtain drew up. The fiddlers in the orchestra 
blubbered like hungry children crying for their 
bread and butter ; and when the bell rang for 
music between the acts, the tears ran from the 
bassoon player's eyes in such showers that they 
choked the finger-stops, and making a spout of 
the instrument, poured in such a torrent upon 
the first fiddler's book, that, not seeing the over- 
ture was in two sharps, the leader of the band 
actually played in two flats ; but the sobs and 
sighs of the groaning audience, and the noise of 
the corks drawn from the smelling-bottles, pre- 
vented the mistake being discovered. t The briny 
pond in the pit was three feet deep, and the 
people that were obliged to stand upon the 
benches, were in that position up to their ankles 
in tears. An Act of Parliament against her 
playing will certainly pass, for she has infected 
the volunteers, and they sit reading ' The Fatal 
Marriage,' crying and roaring all the time. May 



DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH. 1 1 5 

the curses of an insulted nation pursue the gen- 
tlemen of the College, the gentlemen of the Bar, 
and the peers and peeresses that hissed her on 
the second night. True it is that Mr. Garrick 
never could make anything of her, and pro- 
nounced her below mediocrity ; true it is the 
London audience did not like her ; but what of 
that?" 

Her consciousness of the antagonism that 
existed against her in the press and amongst 
the public made her stay in the capital by no 
means either pleasant or successful, and she 
was glad to start with the party which Daly had 
got together to go the round of the country. It 
consisted of the manager and his future wife, 
Miss Barsanti, the two Kembles, Miss Younge, 
Digges, Miss Phillips, and Mrs. Melnotte, wife 
of Pratt Melnotte, of Bath celebrity. 

An amusing account of the tour has been left 
by Bernard the actor, who happened to be in 
Ireland at the time. The solemn Kembles cer- 
tainly seem out of place in the rollicking fun, 
and we can imagine Mrs. Siddons' stately dis- 
gust when a gentleman from the pit called out, 
"Sally, me jewel, how are you ?" or, as occurred 
several times, when a general dance took place 
in the gallery as soon as the orchestra began. 

Mrs. Siddons does not seem "to have had any 



Il6 MRS. SIDDONS. 

occasion for changing later the first opinion 
she formed of the country, for we find her writ- 
ing confidentially to Mr. Whalley from Cork, 
on the 29th of August, that she thinks the city 
of Dublin a sink of filthiness. "The noisome 
smells, and the multitudes of shocking and most 
miserable objects, made me resolve never to stir 
out but to my business. I like not the people 
either; they are all ostentation and insincerity, 
and in their ideas of finery very like the French, 
but not so cleanly; and they not only speak, 
but think coarsely. This is in confidence ; there- 
fore, your fingers on your lips, I pray. They 
are tenacious of their country to a degree of folly 
that is very laughable, and would call me the 
blackest of ingrates were they to know my sen- 
timents of them. I have got a thousand pounds 
among them this summer. I always acknowl- 
edge myself obliged to them, but I cannot love 
them. I know but one among them that can in 
any degree atone for the barbarism of the rest, 
who thinks there are other means of expressing 
esteem besides forcing people to eat and to 
drink, the doing which to a most offensive degree 
they call Irish hospitality. I long to be at home, 
sitting quietly in the little snug parlor, where I 
had last the pleasure, or rather the pain, of see- 
ing you that night. For the first time in my life 



DUBLIN A ND EDINB UR GH. \\J 

I wished not to see you. I dreaded it, and with 
reason. I knew (which was the case) I should 
not recover that cruel farewell for several days. 

" Oh ! my dear friend, do the pleasures of life 
compensate for the pangs ? I think not. Some 
people place the whole happiness of life in the 
pleasures of imagination, in building castles ; for 
my part, I am not one that builds very magnifi- 
cent ones. Nay; I don't build any castles, but 
cottages without end. May the great Disposer 
of all events but permit me to spend the evening 
of my toilsome, bustling day in a cottage, where 
I may sometimes have the converse and society 
which will make me more worthy those imper- 
ishable habitations which are prepared for the 
spirits of just men made perfect ! Yes, let me 
take up my rest in this world near my beloved 
Langford. You know this has been my castle 
any time these four years. And I am making a 
little snug party. Mr. Nott and my dear sister 
I have secured, and make no doubt of gaining a 
few others. Is not this a delightful scheme ? 

" I have played for one charity since I have 
been here (I am at Cork, I should tell you), 
and am to play for another to-morrow — your fa- 
vorite Zara, in the 'Mourning Bride.' I am 
extremely happy that you like your little com- 
•panion so well [alluding to a miniature of her- 



Il8 MRS. SID DONS. 

self she had sent him]. I have sat to a young 
man in this place, who has made a small full- 
length of me in Isabella, upon the first entrance 
of Biron. You will think this an arduous under- 
taking, but he has succeeded to admiration. I 
think it more like me than any I have ever yet 
seen. I am sure you would have been delighted 
with it. I never was so well in my life as I 
have been in Ireland ; but, God be praised, I 
shall set out for dear England next Tuesday. 

"This letter has been begun this month, and 
finished by a line or two at a time, so you'll find 
it a fine scrawl, and I am still so mere a matter- 
of-fact body as to despair of giving you the least 
entertainment. I can boast no other claim to 
the honor and happiness of your correspond- 
ence than a very sincere affection for you both, 
joined with the most perfect esteem for your 
most amiable qualities and great talent. Say all 

that's kind for me to my dear Mrs. W , and 

believe me, ever your most affectionate 

" S. SlDDONS." 

f 

" Cork, August 29th. 
" I hope you will give me the pleasure of hear- 
ing from you soon." 

"London, October 7th, 1783. 
" For God's sake, my dear friends, pray for my 



D UBLTN A ND EDINB UR GH. 1x9 

memory. I had forgot to pay the postage as 
you kindly desired, and this poor letter has been 
wandering about the world ever since I left 
Cork. 

" It was opened in Ireland, you see, so I must 
never show my face there again. The King 
commands " Isabella " to-morrow, and I play 
"Jane Shore" on Saturday. I have affronted 
Mrs. Jackson by not being able to procure her 
places. I am extremely sorry for it, as I had 
the highest esteem for herself, and her friend- 
ship to you had tied her close to my heart. I 
have done all I could to reinstate myself in her 
favor, but in vain. Poor Mr. Nott has been in 
great trouble ; he has lost a brother lately that 
was more nearly allied than by blood, and for 
whose loss he is inconsolable. He is not in 
town, but I hope soon to see him. Adieu ! Mr. 
Siddons, &c, desire kindest wishes. The last 
letter I wrote to you I was very near serving in 
the same manner. Is it not a little alarming? 
I fear I shall be superannuated in a few years." 

Her acrimony is almost incomprehensible. 
After the expressions used in the above letter 
we can quite understand how she made herself 
unpopular. She might have wished secrecy 
kept, but she was not the woman to hide what 
she felt. She is unjust also in the statement 



120 MRS. SIDDONS. 

that Irishmen " not only think but speak 
coarsely." On this, as on other occasions, she 
allowed her wounded vanity to dim her power of 
observation. The punishment, however, came 
sharp and sudden, and destroyed her happiness 
for many a day. 

While Mrs. Siddons was acting in Dublin, 
Jackson, the manager of the Edinburgh theatre, 
opened communications with her with a view to 
an engagement. Finding it difficult to come to 
terms, he at last travelled over himself, but the 
history of the negotiation from beginning to end 
makes us understand Mrs. Siddons' unpopular- 
ity with all her managers. There is too resolute 
an adherence to her own interests, too much of 
a calm, cold superiority. She " haggled " and 
bargained over every step, until Jackson almost 
gave the whole business up in despair. Encour- 
aged, however, FitzGerald tells us, by a purse of 
^200, which some noblemen and gentlemen of 
Scotland had liberally made up to assist him in 
making the engagement, he at last assented to 
her terms. The Siddons' demands for nine 
nights' performance, besides a " clear benefit," 
was .£400. They soon, however, heard of the 
^200 subscription, and Mr. Siddons then wrote 
to know if the sum was to be included in the 
.£400, or if it were to come under the head of 



D UBLIN AND EDINB URGH. 1 2 1 

an extra emolument The manager was explicit 
in his statement that the ,£200 was intended for 
his benefit. On this Mrs. Siddons announced 
that she did not wish for any given sum, but 
would take half the clear receipts. Poor Jack- 
son was obliged to agree to this breach of con- 
tract, as he had already gone so far with his 
patrons in Edinburgh. The history of the ne- 
gotiation, however, is not pleasant reading for 
Mrs. Siddons* admirers, especially when we find 
later that she contrived to have the .£200 sub- 
scription paid over to her without the knowledge 
of the manager, and that at the end of her 
engagement Jackson found himself a loser. 
The "charges of the house" were put too low. 
Actors like Pope, King, and Miss Farren had 
always allowed something handsome on settle- 
ment. Nothing was to be obtained from Mrs. 
Siddons. 

The average profit would have been about 
^25 a night. From Dublin she returned to 
London, and acted her second season there ; it 
was even more brilliant than her first, and ren- 
dered noteworthy both by her first appearance 
with her brother, John Kemble, in " The Game- 
ster," who from that time frequently acted with 
her, and by her acting of Isabella in " Measure 
for Measure," in which part she made her first 



122 



MRS. SIDDONS. 



success in a Shakesperean character in London. 
She looked the novice of St. Clare to perfection. 
In the spring she made her way northwards to 
keep her engagement with the Edinburgh man- 
ager, and on Saturday, 22nd May, 1784, she 
appeared on the stage of the Royalty theatre, in 
Belvidera. The well-known impassibility of the 
Edinburgh audience affected Mrs. Siddons with 
an intolerable sense of depression. 

After some of her grandest outbursts of. pas- 
sion, to which no expression of applause had 
responded, exhausted and breathless, she would 
pant out in despair, under her breath, " Stupid 
people, stupid people!" This habitual reserve 
she soon found, however, gave way at times to 
very violent exhibitions of enthusiasm, the more 
fervent from its general expression — once, in- 
deed, the whole of the sleep-walking scene in 
" Macbeth " was so vehemently applauded that, 
contrary to all rule, she had to go over it a 
second time before the piece was allowed to 
proceed. 

Afterwards, when by these ebullitions of real 
feeling she had proved her audience's apprecia- 
tion, she could afford to tell stories of their sto- 
lidity when she first appeared amongst them. 
The second night, disheartened at the cold 
reception of her most thrilling passages, . after 



D UBLIN AND EDINB UR GH. 1 2 3 

one desperate effort she paused for a reply. It 
came at last, when the silence was broken by a 
single voice exclaiming, "That's no bad!" a 
tribute which was the signal for unbounded 
applause. One venerable old gentleman, who 
was taken by his daughter to see the great 
actress in " Venice Preserved," sat with perfect 
composure through the first act and into the 
second, when he asked his daughter, " Which 
was the woman Siddons ? " As Belvidera is the 
only female part in the play, she had no diffi- 
culty in answering. Nothing more occurred till 
the catastrophe ; he then inquired, " Is this a 
comedy or a tragedy ? " " Why, bless you, 
father, a tragedy." "So I thought, for I am 
beginning to feel a commotion." This instance 
was typical of the whole of the audience — and 
once they began to " feel a commotion," there 
was no longer any doubt about their expression 
of it. The passion, indeed, for hysterics and 
fainting at her performances ran into a fashion- 
able mania. A distinguished surgeon, familiarly 
called " Sandy # Wood," who, with his shrewd 
common sense, had a way of seeing through the 
follies of his fashionable patients, was called 
from his seat in the pit, where he was to be 
found every evening Mrs. Siddons acted, to 
attend upon the hysterics of one of the excita- 



124 MRS - SIDDONS. 

ble ladies who were tumbling around him. On 
his way through the crowd a friend said to him, 
alluding to Mrs. Siddons, "This is glorious act- 
ing, Sandy." Looking round at the fainting and 
screaming ladies in the boxes, Wood answered, 

"Yes, and a d d deal o't, too." Some 

verses in the Scot's Magazine give a picture of 
the scene, the pit being described as " all porter 
and pathos, all whisky and whining," while — 

" From all sides of the house, hark ! the cry how it swells, 
While the boxes are torn with most heart-piercing yells I " 

The enthusiasm to see her was so great, that 
one day there were more than 2500 applications 
for about 600 seats. The oppression and heat 
was so great in the crowded and ill-ventilated 
theatre, that an epidemic that attacked the town 
was humorously attributed to this cause, and 
was called "the Siddons fever." All that was 
most cultured and intellectual in Edinburgh 
came to do her homage — Blair, Hume, Beattie, 
Mackenzie, Home, all attended her perform- 
ances. She made by her engagement, the share 
of the house, benefit, and subscription, more 
than one thousand pounds. And this success 
was not only among the educated classes, the 
pit and gallery paid their tribute besides. Camp- 
bell tells us how a poor servant- girl with a 



D UBLIN A ND EDINB UR GH. 1 2 5 

basket of greens on her arm, one day stopped 
near her in the High Street, and hearing her 
speak, said, " Ah, weel do I ken that sweet 
voice, that made me greet sae sair the streen." 
Before she left she was presented with a silver 
tea-urn, as a mark of "esteem" for superior 
genius and unrivalled talents. She refers to 
this visit later in her grandiloquent style : " How 
shall I express my gratitude for the honors and 
kindness of my northern friends ? for, should I 
attempt it, I should be thought the very queen 
of egotists. But never can I forget the private 
no less than public marks of their gratifying 
suffrages." 



CHAPTER VII. 

CLOUDS. 

On the 15th June she tore herself away from 
all these "private" and "public marks of grati- 
fying suffrages," and again paid a visit to Dub- 
lin, which at the beginning was more successful 
than her former one, but towards the end was 
clouded with untoward circumstances, which 
militated against her for the whole of her profes- 
sional career. 

This time she became the guest of her former 
friend Miss Boyle, now become Mrs. O'Neil of 
Shane's Castle. The Lord-Lieutenant welcomed 
her as if she were some " great lady of rank," 
and she tells us how she was received " by all 
the first families with the most flattering hos- 
pitality, and the days I passed with them will be 
ever remembered among the most pleasurable 
of my life." She paid a visit to Shane's Castle. 
" I have not words to describe the beauty and 
splendor of this enchanting place, which, I am 
sorry to say, has since been levelled to the earth 
by a tremendous fire. Here were often assem- 
(126) 



CLOUDS. 127 

bled all the talent, and rank, and beauty of Ire- 
land. Among the persons of the Leinster family 
whom I met here was poor Lord Edward Fitz- 
gerald, the most amiable, honorable, though 
misguided youth I ever knew. 

" The luxury of this establishment almost 
inspired the recollections of an Arabian Nights' 
entertainment. Six or eight carriages, with a 
numerous throng of lords and ladies on horse- 
back, began the day by making excursions 
around this terrestrial paradise, returning home 
just in time to dress for dinner. The table was 
served with a profusion and elegance to which I 
have never seen anything comparable. The 
sideboards were decorated with adequate mag- 
nificence, on which appeared several immense 
silver flagons containing claret. A fine band of 
musicians played during the whole of the repast. 
They were stationed in the corridors, which led 
into a fine conservatory, where we plucked our 
dessert from numerous trees of the most exqui- 
site fruits. The foot of the conservatory was 
washed by the waves of a superb lake, from 
which the cool and pleasant wind came, to mur- 
mur in concert with the harmony from the cor- 
ridor. The graces of the presiding genius, the 
lovely mistress of the mansion, seemed to blend 
with the whole scene." 



128 MRS. SID DONS. 

These Arabian Nights' entertainments, de- 
lightful as they may have been, were calculated 
to make her very unpopular with her profession. 
Stories about her fine lady airs were freely cir- 
culated, to which her own want of tact, and the 
injudicious behavior of her husband, gave a 
certain foundation. 

One of these that was actually believed, and 
copied into the London papers, was to the effect 
that, having been persuaded to visit the studio 
of a certain Mr. Home, a local artist, he asked 
her to sit to him. " Impossible," was the reply, 
" I can hardly find time to sit to Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds." The offended artist insinuated that her 
refusal would not ruin him ; upon which she was 
said to have boxed his ears and stormed out of 
the house. This is so palpably ill-natured, and 
from a knowledge of Mrs. Siddons' character so 
improbable, that we only give it, among a mass 
of other evidence, to show how the feeling 
against her gradually arose, which, to a certain 
extent, was destined to pursue her through life. 
Mr. Siddons' good sense did not materially aid 
her. On one occasion, dining, in company with 
John Kemble, at the house of a Dublin mer- 
chant, their host expressed a great wish to be 
introduced to the young actress. " I should 
like to very much, but do not know how to break 



CLOUDS. 129 

the matter to her," was the husband's reply, 
which, we must confess, was not calculated to 
increase the geniality of feeling entertained for 
her in general society. She managed also to 
offend the manager, Mr. Daly, who by all ac- 
counts was not an agreeable person, for we read 
in Bernard's " Reminiscences " that he was an 
extremely vain, jealous-tempered man, proud of 
his acting and good looks. Mrs. Siddons insin- 
uates that his dislike arose to her scornful rejec- 
tion of attentions he endeavored to press upon 
her. However that may be, the following is her 
own account of the manner in which he first 
showed his enmity, and gives a curious insight 
into the wretched bickerings and heart-burnings 
of the profession : — 

" The manager of the theatre also very soon 
began to adopt every means of vexation for me 
that he could possibly devise, merely because I 
chose to suggest at rehearsal that his proper 
situation, as Falconbridge in " King John," 
was at the right hand of the King. During 
the scene between Constance and Austria, he 
thought it necessary that he should, though he 
did it most ungraciously, adopt this arrange- 
ment;- but his malevolence pursued me unre- 
mittedly from that moment. He absurdly 
fancied that he was of less consequence when 
9 



130 MRS. SID DONS. 

placed at so great a distance from the front of 
the stage, at the ends of which the kings were 
seated ; but he had little or nothing to say, and 
his being in the front would have greatly inter- 
rupted and diminished the effect of Constance's 
best scene. He made me suffer, however, suf- 
ficiently for my personality by employing all the 
newspapers to abuse and annoy me the whole 
time I remained in Dublin, and to pursue me to 
England with malignant scandal ; but of that 
anon. The theatre, meantime, was attended to 
his heart's content — indeed, the whole of this 
engagement was as profitable as my most san- 
guine hopes could have anticipated." 

Presently, however, she was to be put on her 
trial for a more serious charge. The unfortu- 
nate actor, Digges, while rehearsing with her, 
was struck down with paralysis. Lee Lewes, 
who endeavors to defend her in all this business, 
tells us that her engagement was then drawing 
to a close, and she was announced to play at 
Cork a few days after. Asked to perform in a 
benefit for the poor man, she replied that she 
was sorry she had but one night to spare, and 
had already promised to play for the Marshalsea 
pensioners. Thinking better of this determina- 
tion, however, later, she despatched "a messen- 
ger" to Digges, saying she had reconsidered the 



CLOUDS. 131 

matter, and would be glad to perform for him. 
Digges expressed his gratitude, and the night 
and play were fixed ; but, according to her own 
evidence, everything was done to annoy her and 
prevent the carrying out of her charitable inten- 
tions. This is her account of the business : — 

"When my visit to Shane Castle was over, I 
entered into another engagement in Dublin. 
Among the actors was Mr. Digges, who had for- 
merly held a high rank in the drama, but who 
was now by age and infirmity reduced to a sub- 
ordinate and mortifying situation. It occurred 
to me that I might be of some use to him if I 
could persuade the manager to give him a night, 
and the actors to perform for him, at the close 
of my engagement ; but when I proposed my 
request to the manager (Daly declares, as we 
shall see, that the proposal came from him, and 
not from her), he told me it could not be, because 
the whole company would be obliged to leave 
the Dublin theatre in order to open the theatre 
at Limerick, but that he would lend the house 
for my purpose if I could procure a sufficient 
number of actors to perform a play. By inde- 
fatigable labor, and in spite of cruel annoyances 
Mr. Siddons and myself got together, from all 
the little country theatres, as many as would 
enable us to attempt "Venice Preserved." Oh I 



132 MRS. SIDDONS. 

to be sure it was a scene of disgust and confu- 
sion. I acted Belvidera, without having ever 
previously seen the face of one of the actors — 
for there was no time for even one rehearsal 
— but the motive procured us indulgence. Poor 
Mr. Digges was most materially benefited by 
this most ludicrous performance, and I put my 
disgust into my pocket since money passed into 
his. Thus ended my Irish engagement, but not 
so my persecution by the manager, at whose 
instance the newspapers were rilled with the 
most unjust and malignant reflections on me. 
All the time I was on a visit of some length to 
the Dowager Duchess of Leinster, unconscious 
of the gathering storm, whilst the public mind 
was imbibing poisonous prejudices against me. 
Alas for those who subsist by the stability of 
public favor ! " 

The above was written by Mrs. Siddons in 
later days, and is eminently unsatisfactory from 
every point of view. The dragging in of the 
Dowager Duchess of Leinster, when we want a 
plain statement of facts, is irritating, and the 
complaint against public favor at the end is 
stilted and artificial. No doubt the manager 
was unfriendly, but her first impulse was not a 
generous one, and she laid herself open to ill- 
natured constructions being put on her conduct. 



CLOUDS. I33 

The real story we take to be this : Digges (to 
whom she was not particularly inclined to be 
friendly, owing to her attributing to him the 
authorship of the satirical criticisms on her act- 
ing when she first arrived in Ireland) was struck 
down by illness, in a manner and under circum- 
stances to arouse the deep sympathy of the 
members of his profession, ever charitable to 
one another. Daly, the manager, before com- 
municating with Digges, asked Mr. Siddons if 
his wife would give her services for a benefit. 
He, instigated of course by her, refused the 
request. On this refusal, not unjustly, were 
based all the charges brought against her. Daly 
then offered to pay for her services ; this also 
was refused, and nothing further was done until 
Mrs. Siddons, finding the whole affair unfavor- 
ably canvassed, sent Mr. Siddons to inform 
Digges that she had arranged to play for his 
benefit. This graciousness came too late ; the 
rumor of her refusal had already got abroad, and 
very unfavorable comments were made both by 
the press and the public. The annoyance also 
caused her by the inefficient representation of 
"Venice Preserved " might have been avoided if 
she had at once acceded to Daly's request. As 
it was, the company had been obliged to leave 
for the opening of the Limerick Theatre. She 



*34 



MRS. SID DONS. 



and Mr. Siddons, therefore, were obliged to get 
together a scratch company, and give the bene- 
fit after the season was over, which could not 
have been nearly so advantageous to the object 
of the charity. Money was made, but not so 
much as if she had acted in the middle of the 
season. We can hardly believe she was actu- 
ated in all this by love of money ; it is more 
likely that the proud resentment she felt when 
unfavorably criticised in any way had interfered 
with her kindlier impulse. 

In the case of Brereton, the same unfortunate 
sensitiveness seems to have been at work. Brere- 
ton was the leading actor of her troupe, always 
played lover to her heroine and, it was said, had 
at one time made his love in so earnest a fash- 
ion that the beautiful actress had, as in the case 
of Daly, to check his ardor, or, as Boaden 
expresses it, " in kindling his imagination the 
divinity unsettled his reason, and in clasping the 
goddess he became sensible of the charms of the 
woman." However this may be, Brereton was 
by no means friendly, and never missed an oppor- 
tunity of covertly attacking her. When asked, 
therefore, to play for his benefit, she actually 
deducted ten pounds from the profits as her own 
emolument. Percy Fitzgerald seems inclined to 
think that "all this wretched muddle was the 



CLOUDS. 135 

work of Mr. Siddons, who, considering the char- 
itable taxes laid on her, and the many benefits 
she had to assist, found himself obliged, like 
most husbands of money-getting actresses, to 
bargain and chaffer for her gifts as if they were 
wares, and get as much money as they could be 
made to bring in." 

But we think that at no time of their married 
life had Siddons enough influence to induce her 
to do anything against her better judgment, 
and we doubt very much whether he was ever 
allowed to complete a bargain of any kind, 
although his name was frequently used. What 
aroused the sympathy of the public more warmly 
in the cause of Brereton was the madness that 
subsequently fell upon him. 

The best side of her character was ever called 
out by adversity. It was perhaps undignified 
to defend herself as she did — or, rather, as Sid- 
dons did in her name — by an exculpatory letter 
to the papers, appealing to the two actors, 
Digges and Brereton, to declare whether she 
had, or had not, played for them when asked. 
Two letters were thus extorted from them 
declaring that she had done all that was neces- 
sary to satisfy the calls of charity, &c. Nothing 
could be conceived more fatal to her cause than 
all this bandying of evidence. The idol men 



136 MRS. SID DONS. 

set up to worship they generally delight to drag 
down and trample under foot if they dare. In 
this case, however, they might insult and humil- 
iate, but they could not drag their victim from 
the high estate she had achieved. 

Her very high qualities as a wife and mother, 
her decorum of conduct, so different to others of 
her profession, seemed to add a zest to the acri- 
mony with which they assaulted her. The first 
part in which she appeared on the London 
boards after her return from Dublin was Mrs. 
Beverly in the " Gamester " to her brother's 
Stukeley. Hardly had the curtain been raised, 
before a storm of hooting and hissing broke 
forth, and she whom they had late proclaimed a 
queen, who had seen the town enslaved at her 
feet, now stood u the object of public scorn." 
She did the best thing she could by remaining 
with perfect composure facing them, but in 
those few dreadful moments she discounted all 
the adulation and success she had enjoyed. How 
intense the suffering was we can see by the 
account written years after. 

" I had left London," she tells us, "the object 
of universal approbation, but, on my return, only 
a few weeks afterwards, I was received, on my 
first night's appearance, with universal oppro- 
brium, accused of hardness of heart, and total 



CLOUDS. 137 

insensibility to everything and everybody except 
my own interest. Unhappily, contrary winds 
had for some days precluded the possibility of 
receiving from Dublin such letters as would have 
refuted those atrocious calumnies, and saved me 
from the horrors of this dreadful night, when I 
was received with hissing and hooting. Amidst 
this afflicting clamor I made several attempts 
to be heard, when at length a gentleman stood 
forth in the middle of the front of the pit, impel- 
led by benevolent and gentlemanly feeling, who, 
as I advanced to make my last attempt at being 
heard, accosted me with these words : * For 
Heaven's sake, Madam, do not degrade yourself 
by an apology, for there is nothing necessary to 
be said ! ' I shall always look back with gratitude 
to this gallant man's solitary advocacy of my 
cause; like Abdiel, 'faithful found; among the 
faithless, faithful only he.' His admonition was 
followed by reiterated clamor, when my dear 
brother appeared, and carried me away from this 
scene of insult. 

" The instant I quitted it I fainted in his arms ; 
and, on my recovery, I was thankful that my 
persecutors had not had the gratification of be- 
holding this weakness. After I was tolerably 
restored to myself, I was induced, by the per- 
suasions of my husband, my brother, and Mr, 



138 MRS. SID DONS. 

Sheridan, to present myself again before that 
audience by whom I had been so savagely 
treated, and before whom, but in consideration 
of my children, I would have never appeared 
again. The play was " The Gamester," which 
commences with a scene between Beverley and 
Charlotte. 

"Great and pleasant was my astonishment to 
find myself, on the second rising of the curtain, 
received with a silence so profound that I was 
absolutely awe-struck, and never yet have I been 
able to account for this surprising contrast ; for 
I really think that the falling of a pin might 
have been then heard upon the stage." 

On her entrance the second time, Mrs. Sid- 
dons summoned enough courage to address the 
audience : — 

" Ladies and gentlemen, the kind and flatter- 
ing partiality which I have uniformly experi- 
enced in this place would make the present 
interruption distressing to me indeed, were I in 
the slightest degree conscious of having de- 
served your censure. I feel no such conscious- 
ness. 

"The stories which have been circulated 
against me are calumnies. When they shall be 
proved to be true, my aspersors will be justified ; 
but, till then my respect for the public leads me 



CLOUDS. 139 

to be confident that I shall be protected from 
unmerited insult." 

These words, spoken by the Muse of Tragedy, 
with her stately dignity and flaming eyes, had 
an instantaneous effect. She withdrew; the 
curtain fell. 

King, the actor, came forward to beg the 
indulgence of the audience for a few moments ; 
and when she appeared again, pale but calm, 
not an attempt at interruption was heard. On 
several occasions after, an attempt was made to 
renew the interruption ; but the orderly portion 
of the audience was strong enough to quell it. 
She acknowledged the applause when she came 
on, and endeavored to appear perfectly indiffer- 
ent to the hissing ; but all the triumphant confi- 
dence of the first days of success seemed to 
have deserted her for the time, and she was 
again the uncertain, tottering debutante. Her 
splendid genius was, however, but dimmed, and 
all her suffering but lent to serve as a stepping- 
stone to a higher level than she had yet attained. 
We must give here some letters she wrote to 
her friends, the Whalleys, as giving an insight 
into that brave heart of this wonderful woman, 
"whose victorious faith upheld her" in this 
and many subsequent trials. What wonder, 
however, that in later years she grew hard and 



140 MRS. SID DONS. 

proud — the first bloom of trust and belief was 
rubbed off in these her first encounters with 
the rough judgment of the mob. From hence- 
forth the confiding girlish Ophelia and Juliet 
vanish from the scene, and Lady Macbeth, with 
her fierce reliance on intellectual power alone, 
and indignant scorn of all human judgment, 
appears. She wrote to the Whalleys : — 

" My Dearest Friends : — I hardly dare hope 
that you will remember me. I know I don't 
deserve that you should ; but I know, also, that 
you are too steadfast and too good to cast me off 
for a seeming negligence to which my heart and 
soul are averse, and the appearance of which I 
have incessantly regretted. What can I say in 
my defence ? I have been very unhappy ; now 
'tis over I will venture to tell you so, that you may 
not ' lose the dues of rejoicing.' ' Envy, malice, 
detraction, all the fiends of hell have compassed 
me round about to destroy me ; ' ' but blessed be 
God who hath given me the victory,' &c. I 
have been charged with almost everything bad, 
except incontinence, and it is attributed to me 
as thinking a woman may be guilty of every 
crime in the catalogue of crimes, provided she 
retain her chastity. 

" God help them and forgive them, they know 



CLOUDS. 14I 

but little of me. I dare say you will wonder 
that a favorite should stand her ground so long; 
and in truth so do. I. I have been degraded ; I 
am now again the favorite servant of the public, 
and I have kept the noiseless tenor of my tem- 
per in these extremes. My spirit has been 
grieved, but my victorious faith upholds me. I 
look forward to a better world for happiness, and 
am placed in this in mercy to be a candidate for 
that. But what makes the wound rankle deeper 
is that ingratitude, hypocrisy, and perfidy have 
barbed the darts. But it is over, and I am 
happy. Good God ! what would I give to see 
you both, but for an hour ! How many thou- 
sand, thousand times do I wish myself with you, 
and long to unburthen my heart to you. I can't 
bear the idea of your being so long absent. I 
know you will expect to hear what I have been 
doing; and I wish I could do this to your satis- 
faction. Suffice it to say that I have acted Lady 
Macbeth, Desdemona, and several other things 
this season with the most unbounded approba- 
tion ; and you have no idea how the innocence 
and playful simplicity of the latter have laid 
hold on the hearts of the people. I am very 
much flattered by this, as nobody ever has 
done anything with that character before. My 
brother is charming in " Othello ; " indeed, I 



I42 MRS. SID DONS. 

must do the public the justice to say that they 
have been extremely indulgent, if not partial, to 
every character I have performed. 

" I have never seen Mr. Pratt since I heard 
from you, but he discovers his unworthiness to 
my own family ; he abuses me, it seems, to one 
of my sisters in the most complete manner. 
How distressing is it to be so deceived ! Our 
old Mary, too, whom you must remember, has 
proved a very viper. She has lately taken to 
drinking, has defrauded us of a great deal of 
money given her to pay the tradespeople, and 
in her cups has abused Mr. Siddons and me 
beyond all bounds ; and I believe in my soul 
that all the scandalous reports of Mr. Siddons' 
ill-treatment of me originated entirely in her. 
One may pay for one's experience, and the con- 
sciousness of acting rightly is a comfort that 
hell-born malice cannot rob us of. Lady Lang- 
ham has done me the honor to call with her 
daughter. Her drawings are very wonderful 
things for such a girl. In the compositions she 
has drawn me in " Macbeth " asleep and awake ; 
but I think she has been unsuccessful in this 
effort. Next week I shall see your daughter 
and the rest. Sarah is an elegant creature, and 
Maria is as beautiful as a seraph. Harry grows 
very awkward, sensible, and well-disposed ; and, 



clouds. 143 

thank God, we are all well. I can stay no 
longer than to hope that you are both so, and 
happy (see how disinterested I am,) that Reeves 
and the dear Paphy are so too ; and that you 
will love me, and believe me, with the warmest 
and truest affection, unalterably and gratefully 
yours, " S. Siddons." 

" My whole family desire the kindest remem- 
brances. We have bought a house in Gower 
street, Bedford square ; the back of it is most 
effectually in the country and delightfully pleas- 
ant. 

" God bless you, my dear Mrs. Whalley ! How 
perfectly do I see you at this moment ; and you, 
too, my dear friend, for it is impossible to sepa- 
rate your images in my mind. Pray write to 
me soon, and give me another instance of your 
unwearied kindness. Adieu ! " 

We can see how bruised and sore her heart is. 
For the moment she thinks all are conspiring to 
betray her. 

The Mr. Pratt she alludes to was a Bath 
bookseller and dramatist, much admired by his 
townsmen. This admiration was not shared by 
the managers of Drury Lane, who would not 
allow Mrs. Siddons to act in his drama the first 



144 MRS - SID DONS. 

year she appeared. She had already sacrificed 
herself to a failure "The Fatal Interview," 
which had really injured her professional repu- 
tation. Pratt maintained, however, she might 
have done him this service had she been so 
minded. She herself writes kindly of the aspi- 
rant to fame, but we can see his cause of irrita- 
tion. 

" Your letter," she writes in 1783 to Dr. 
Whalley, "to poor Pratty is lying on the table 
by me, and I am selfish enough to grudge it him 
from the bottom of my heart, and yet I will not ; 
for just now, poor soul, he wants much comfort ; 
therefore, let him take it, and God bless him 
with it ! " 

And again : — 

" ' The Fatal Interview ' has been played three 
times, and is quite done with ; it was the dullest 
of all representations. Pratty's Epilogue was 
vastly applauded indeed. I shall take care how 
I get into such another play ; but I fancy the 
managers will take care of that, too. They 
wont let me play in Pratty s comedy." 

All this shows us how often she was the victim 
of undeserved resentment on the part of slighted 
authors, and how, very often, the fact of doing a 
kindness got her into trouble. She had accepted 
"The Fatal Interview," and now Pratt thought 



CLOUDS. I45 

himself aggrieved that she would not do the 
same for him. Most likely at any other time 
she would have shrugged her shoulders at Bratt's 
machinations, but everything now hurt her 
wounded sensibilities. 

" I must beg you will not mention (I believe 
I am giving an unnecessary caution) anything I 
have told you concerning Mr. Pratt. I would 
not wish him to know, by any means, that I 
have been informed of his last unkindness, 
because it might prevent his asking me to do 
him a favor, which I shall be at all times ready 
to grant, when in my power. I must tell you 
that after the very unkind letter he sent me, in 
answer to mine requesting the ten pounds, I 
never wrote to or heard from him until about 
three months ago, when he wrote to me as if he 
had never offered such an indignity, recommend- 
ing a work he had just finished to my attention. 
He did not tell me what this work was, but I 
had heard it was a tragedy. To be made a con- 
venient acquaintance only, did not much gratify 
me ; but, however, I wrote to say he knew the 
resolution I had been obliged to make (having 
made many enemies by reading some, and not 
being able to give time to read all tragedies) to 
read nobody's tragedy, and then no one could 
take offence ; but that if it were accepted by 
10 



146 MRS. SID DONS. 

the managers, and there was anything that I 
could be of service to him in (doing justice to 
myself), that I should be very happy to serve 
him. I have heard nothing of him since that 
time till within these few days, when he wrote 
to my sister Fanny, accusing me of ingratitude, 
and calling himself the ladder upon which I 
have mounted to fame, and which I am kicking 
down. 

" What he means by ingratitude I am at a loss 
to guess, and I fancy he would be puzzled to 
explain ; our obligations were always, I believe, 
pretty mutual. However, in this letter to 
Fanny, he says he is going to publish a poem 
called " Gratitude," in which he means to show 
my avarice and meanness, and all the rest of my 
amiable qualities to the world, for having drop- 
ped him, as he calls it, so injuriously, and ban- 
ishing him my house. Now, as I hope for mercy, 
I permitted his visits at my house, after having 
discovered that he was taking every possible 
method to attach my sister to him, which, you 
may be sure, he took pains to conceal from us, 
and I had him to my parties long after I made 
this discovery. 

" In short, till he chose to write this letter, 
which I disdained to reply to, he called as usual. 
He had the modesty to desist from calling on 



CLOUDS. 147 

us from that time, and now has the goodness to 
throw this unmerited obloquy on me. I am so 
well convinced that a very plain tale will put 
him down, that his intentions give me very little 
concern. I am only grieved to see such daily 
instances of folly and wickedness in human 
nature. 

"It is worth observing, too, that at the very 
time he chose to write this agreeable letter, I 
was using my best influences with Mr. Siddons 
to lend him the money I told you of before. I 
find he thinks it is not very prudent to quarrel 
with me, but has the effrontery to think that I 
should make advances toward our reconcile- 
ment ; but I will die first. ' My towering virtue, 
from the assurance of my merit, scorns to stoop 
so low/ If he should come round of himself 
(for I have learnt that best of knowledge to 
forgive) I will out of respect for what I believe 
he once was, be of what service I can to him, 
for I believe he meant well at one time, when I 
knew him first, and the noblest vengeance is 
the most complete. Once more, your fingers on 
your lips, I pray." 

We should like to see less mention of benefits 
bestowed, the ten pounds not mentioned ; but 
this letter is a good specimen of the manner 
in which she was worried by applicants, and 



148 MRS. SID DONS. 

shows how impossible it was for her to satisfy 
them all. 

The next is a regular eighteenth-century four- 
pager, but is so characteristic, and so sincere and 
full of affection, that we cannot help quoting it 
at the end of this chapter, as the best assurance 
of her possession of that heart her enemies 
declared she did not possess. 

" Mrs. Wapshawe has been so good as to 
bestow half an hour upon me. She speaks of 
you as I should speak of you — as if she could not 
find words, and as if her sentiments could not 
enough honor you both. If you could look into 
the hearts of people, trust me, my beloved and 
ever lamented friends, you would be convinced 
that mine yearns after you with increasing and 
unutterable affection. See there now — how 
have I expressed myself! That is always the 
way with me ; when I speak or write to you it is 
always so inadequately, that I don't do justice to 
myself ; for I thank God that I have a soul capa- 
ble of loving you, and trust I shall find an advo- 
cate in your bosom to assist my inability and 
simpleness. You know me of old for a matter- 
of-fact woman. 

" Mrs. Wapshawe has revived my hopes. She 
tells me that you will return sooner than I hoped. 
Now I'll begin my cottage again. It has been 



CLOUDS. 149 

lying in heaps a great while, and I have shed 
many tears over the ruins ; but we will build it 
up again in joy. You know the spot that I 
have fixed upon, and I trust I have not forgot- 
ten the plan ! 

" Oh ! what a reward for all that I have suf- 
fered, to retire to the blessings of your society ; 
for, indeed, my dear friends, I have paid severely 
for my eminence, and have smarted with the 
undeserved pain that should attend the guilty 
only ; but it is the fate of office, and the rough 
brake that virtue must go through ; and sweet, 
'sweet are the uses of adversity.' I kiss the rod. 

" Mrs. Wapshawe was quite delighted with 
Mr. Beach's picture of you ; but she tells me 
that you wear colored clothes and lace ruffles ; 
and I valued my picture more, if possible, for 
standing the test of such a change as these (to 
me unusual) ornaments must necessarily make 
in you. I think I shall long to strip you of 
these trappings. 

" I am so attached to the garments I have 
been used to see you wear, and think they har- 
monize so well with your face and person, that 
I should wish them like their dear wearer, who 
is without change. I am proud of your chiding, 
though God knows how unwillingly I would give 
you a moment's pain ; nay, more, He knows 



150 MRS. SIDDONS. 

that I neither go to bed, nor offer prayers for 
blessings at His hands, in which your welfare 
does not make an ardent petition. But why 
should I wound your friendly bosoms with the 
relation of my vexations ? I knew you too well 
to suppose you could hear of my distresses with- 
out feeling them too poignantly. 

" I resolved to write when I had overcome 
my enemies. You shall always share my joys, 
but suffer me to keep my griefs from your 
knowledge. Now I am triumphant, the favorite 
of the public again ; and now you hear from me. 

" A strange capricious master is the public. 
However, one consolation greater than any 
other, except one's own approbation, has been 
that those whose suffrages I esteemed most 
have, through all my troubles, clasped me closer 
to their hearts ; they have been the touchstone 
to prove who were really my friends. You will 
believe me when I affirm that your friendship, 
and my dear Mrs. Whalley's, is an honor and a 
happiness I would not forego for any earthly 
consideration. Tell my dearest Mrs. Whalley 
that neither avocations nor indolence would 
have prevented your hearing from me long ago 
but for the reasons already mentioned. I wrote 
to you last Sunday, when I had not received 
your dear letters ; so you will do me the justice 



CLOUDS. 151 

to remember that I was not reminded of you 
but by my own heart, which, while it beats will 
ever love you both with the warmest and truest 
affection ; however, as she is so seldom mis- 
taken, we shall have the honor and glory of 
laughing at her. Would to God I could laugh 
with, or cry with, or anything with you, but for 
half an hour! To say the truth, though, your 
tender reproaches gave me a melancholy which 
I could not (and I don't know if I wished it) 
shake off. Pray let me hear from you very soon, 
and very often. I shall be a better woman, and 
more worthy of your invaluable friendship, the 
more I converse with you. Surely the converse 
of good and gentle spirits is the nearest approach 
to Heaven that we can know ; therefore, once 
more I beg that I may often hear from you, and, 
if you do love me, do not think so unworthily of 
me as to suppose my affection can, in the nature 
of things, ever know the least abatement. I 
conjure you both to promise me this, for I can- 
not bear it — indeed, I can't ! " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LADY MACBETH. 

Contemporaneous critics are unanimous in 
declaring Lady Macbeth to be Mrs. Siddons' 
finest impersonation, and it is with this role that 
we always connect the Great Actress. She 
made the part her own, and identified herself 
with it in the memories of all who saw her. It is 
essentially in Lady Macbeth that Shakespeare 
proves himself so thoroughly Anglo-Saxon ; the 
whole conception of the person is Teutonic. 
The idea of the remorse-haunted murderess, 
with her despairing fatalism and unswerving 
ambition, is more nearly allied to " Vala," in 
the Scandinavian mythology, than anything in 
the tragedies of Sophocles or Euripides, and 
this it is that rendered Mrs. Siddons so per- 
fect an embodiment of the character. She was 
essentially Teutonic in her grandeur, her state- 
liness, and, at the same time, sustained energy 
and vitality. Rachel had moments of super- 
human grandeur and ferocity, but they only 
flashed for a moment ; hers was the turning 
(152) 



LADY MA CBE TH. 1 5 3 

point of passion of the Latin race, but not the 
voluminous grandeur, gaining strength, like a 
mighty river, as it rolls along, which distinguishes 
the heroic emotions of the Teuton. 

In studying the annals of genius, it is inter- 
esting to observe how circumstances working 
from within force it on and bring it to comple- 
tion, how circumstances working from without 
mould it into form, tempering the fine metal 
until it is supple and adaptable, but breaking the 
inferior metal by the sheer weight of their inex- 
orable pressure. 

Had Mrs. Siddons remained the brilliant, 
beautiful girl, with life undimmed by clouds, 
without experience of the bitterness and sorrow 
of life, she never could have acted Lady Mac- 
beth. In her impetuous indignation at first, she 
herself said that never again would " she pre- 
sent herself before that audience that had 
treated her so savagely;" but the greater spirit 
within reasserted itself, and her genius emerged 
from the trial strengthened and expanded by a 
larger range of emotion and experience. 

With her increased knowledge of life, the 
actress was enabled to form a more vivid concep- 
tion of the character. She was naturally in- 
tensely masterful, determined, and ambitious, 
undaunted in peril. She had toiled, and attained 



154 MRS - SID DONS. 

the highest point of her ambition. She had 
known the incentives of distinction, worldly- 
power, applause, yet she remained a woman, pas- 
sionate and wayward in her affections to the last ; 
and this is the view, seen through the medium of 
her own character, that she took of Lady Mac- 
beth, and it was through her lofty impersonation 
of ambition in its highest and most sublimated 
form that she moved her audience to terror, and 
by this womanly tenderness that she moved 
them to sympathy and pity for the murderess of 
Banquo. 

Mrs. Siddons had studied the part of Lady 
Macbeth when little more than a girl. She 
gives us a graphic account of the first time she 
learned it for the purposes of stage representa- 
tion : — 

" It was my custom to study my characters at 
night, when all the domestic care and business 
were over. On the night preceding that in 
which I was to appear in this part for the first 
time, I shut myself up as usual when all the 
family were retired, and commenced my study of 
Lady Macbeth. As the character is very short, 
I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being 
then only twenty years of age, I believed, as 
many others do believe, that little more was nec- 
essary than to get the words into my head ; for 



LAD Y MA CBE TH. 1 5 5 

the necessity of discrimination, and the develop- 
ment of character, at that time of my life, had 
searcely entered into my imagination. But to 
proceed. I went on with tolerable composure, 
in the silence of the night (a night I never can 
forget), till I came to the assassination scene, 
when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree 
that made it impossible for me to get farther. I 
snatched up my candle, and hurried out of the 
room in a paroxysm of terror. My dress was of 
silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the 
stairs to go to bed, seemed to my panic-struck 
fancy like the movement of a spectre pursuing 
me. At last I reaehed my chamber, where I 
found my husband fast asleep. I clapt my can- 
dlestick down upon the table, without the power 
of putting the candle out, and I threw myself 
on my bed without daring to stay even to take 
off my clothes. At peep of day I rose to re- 
sume my task ; but so little did I know of my 
part when I appeared in it at night, that my 
shame and confusion cured me of procrastinat- 
ing my business for the remainder of my life." 

People afterwards were inclined to find her 
formal and sententious, and even denied her 
sensibility off the stage ; but it is impossible to 
read the account of the manner in which she 
entered into her parts, and how they took hold 



156 MRS. SID DONS. 

of her in her early days of work, without feeling 
that she had depths of pathos and sympathy in 
her disposition undreamed of by those who met 
her later when, under a dignified tragic manner,* 
she had hidden her youthful spontaneity of feel- 
ing. We have only need of the evidence of the 
actors she acted with to see how deeply she 
entered into her part. 

Miss Kelly said that when, as Constance, 
Mrs. Siddons wept over her, her collar was wet 
with her tears. Tom Davies is said to have 
declared that in the third act of the " Fair Peni- 
tent" she "turned pale under her rouge." She 
tells us herself that " when called upon to per- 
sonate the character of Constance, I never, from 
the beginning of the play to the end of my part 
in it, once suffered my dressing-room door to be 
closed, in order that my attention might be con- 
stantly fixed on those distressing events which, 
by this means, I could plainly hear going on 
upon the stage, the terrible effects of which 
progress were to be represented by me. More- 
over, I never omitted to place myself, with 
Arthur in my hand, to hear the march, when, 
upon the reconciliation of England and France, 
they enter the gates of Angiers to ratify the 
contract of marriage between the Dauphin and 
the Lady Blanche, because the sickening sounds 



LAD Y MA CBE TH. 1 5 7 

of that march would usually cause the bitter 
tears of rage, disappointment, betrayed confi- 
dence, baffled ambition, and, above all, the ago- 
nizing feelings of maternal affection to gush 
into my eyes." 

As a set-off against the above statement, we 
have Cumberland's description of Mrs. Siddons 
coming off the stage in the full flush of triumph 
— having harrowed her audience with emotion — 
and walking up to the mirror in the green room 
to survey herself with perfect composure. 

We imagine there is no law to be laid down 
on the subject of the amount of feeling an actor 
really puts into the part he is enacting. It must 
vary. Conventionality must, with the greatest 
of them, now and then take the place of emo- 
tion ; or, as Talma expresses it, the " Metier 
must now and then take the place of Le vrai" 

We know the story of how once, when Gar- 
rick was playing King Lear, Johnson and Mur- 
phy kept up an animated conversation at the 
side-wing during one of his most important 
scenes. When Garrick came over the stage, he 
said, " You two talk so loud you destroy all my 
feelings." " Prithee," replied Johnson, "do not 
talk of feelings; Punch has no feeling" — a 
remark which is borne out by another account of 
Garrick as Lear rising from the dead body of 



158 MRS. SID DONS. 

his daughter Cordelia, where he had been con- 
vulsing the audience with sobs, running into the 
green-room gobbling like a turkey to amuse 
Kitty Clive and Mrs. Abington. 

Mrs. Siddons is said to have made the state- 
ment that, after playing the part of Lady Mac- 
beth for thirty years, she never read it over 
without discovering in it something new. In 
her Remarks, however, on the character, left 
amongst her memoranda, we do not find any 
particular depth or originality in her conception, 
and we doubt if she ever improved much on her 
first ideal. As to her notion that Lady Macbeth 
was a small, fair, blue-eyed woman, delicate and 
fragile, it could have been but a " caprice " of 
later days, originating in her endeavor to find 
new readings and impressions. 

A short analysis of some of her opinions on 
the character may be interesting. 

" In this astonishing creature," she says, "one 
sees a woman in whose bosom the passion of 
ambition has almost obliterated all the charac- 
teristics of human nature ; in whose composition 
are associated all the subjugating powers of 
intellect, and all the charms and graces of per- 
sonal beauty. You will probably not agree with 
me as to the character of that beauty ; yet, per- 
haps, this difference of opinion will be entirely 



LADY MA CBE TH. 1 5 9 

attributable to the difficulty of your imagination 
disengaging itself from that idea of the person 
of her representative which you have been so 
long accustomed to contemplate. According to 
my notion, it is of that character which, I be- 
lieve, is generally allowed to be most captivating 
to the other sex — fair, feminine, nay, perhaps, 
even fragile — 

Fair as the forms that, wove in Fancy's loom, 
Float in light visions round the poet's head. 

"Such a combination only — respectable in 
energy and strength of mind, and captivating in 
feminine loveliness — could have composed a 
charm of such potency as to fascinate the mind 
of a hero so dauntless, a character so amiable, 
so honorable as Macbeth, to seduce him to brave 
all the dangers of the present and all the ter- 
rors of a future world ; and we are constrained, 
even whilst we abhor his crimes, to pity the in- 
fatuated" victim of such a thraldom. 

" His letters, which have informed her of the 
predictions of those preternatural beings who 
accosted him on the heath, have lighted up into 
daring and desperate determinations all those 
pernicious slumbering fires which the enemy of 
man is ever watchful to awaken in the bosoms 
of his unwary victims. To his direful sugges- 
tions she is so far from offering the least oppo- 



l6o MRS. SID DONS. 

sition, as not only to yield up her soul to them, 
but, moreover, to invoke the sightless ministers 
of remorseful cruelty to extinguish in her breast 
all those compunctious visitings of nature which 
otherwise might have been mercifully interposed 
to counteract, and, perhaps, eventually to over- 
come, their unholy instigations. But, having 
impiously delivered herself up to the excitement 
of hell, the pitifulness of heaven itself is with- 
drawn from her, and she is abandoned to the 
guidance of the demons whom she invoked. 
Lady Macbeth, thus adorned with every fascina- 
tion of mind and person, enters for the first time, 
reading a part of those portentous letters from 
her husband. 

" ' They met me in the day of success : and I 
have learnt by the perfectest report they have 
more in them than mortal knowledge. When I 
burned with desire to question them further, they 
made themselves into thin air, into which they 
vanished. Whilst I stood wrapt in the wonder 
of it, came missives from the King, who all- 
hailed me "Thane of Cawdor," by which title 
before these sisters had saluted me, and referred 
me to the coming on of time with " Hail, King 
that shall be ! " This I have thought good to 
deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, 
that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoic- 



LADY MA CBE TH. 1 6 1 

ing, by being ignorant of what greatness is 
promised. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.' 

" Now vaulting ambition and intrepid daring, 
rekindle in a moment all the splendors of her 
dark blue eyes. She fatally resolves that Glamis 
and Cawdor shall be also that which the myste- 
rious agents of the Evil One have promised." 

Lady Macbeth then gives the wonderful anal- 
ysis of her husband's character, " Yet I do fear 
thy nature is too full of the milk of human 
kindness to catch the nearest way ; " proving 
him to be of a temper so irresolute as to require 
"all the efforts, all the excitement, which her 
uncontrollable spirit and her unbounded influ- 
ence over him can perform." 

" When Macbeth appears, she seems so insen- 
sible to everything but the horrible design which 
has probably been suggested to her by his let- 
ters, as to have entirely forgotten both the one 
and the other. It is very remarkable that Mac- 
beth is frequent in expressions of tenderness to 
his wife, while she never betrays one symptom 
of affection towards him, till, in the fiery furnace 
of affliction, her iron heart is melted down to 
softness." This was the side by which Mrs. 
Siddons had taken such a grasp of the character 
of Lady Macbeth. It was by bringing into 
prominence this softer side of her character 
ii 



1 62 MRS. SID DONS. 

that, while thrilling her audience with horror, 
she at the same time brought tears to their eyes 
with an immense awe-struck pity. She always 
held their interest by the human touches which 
she brought into as much prominence as possi- 
ble. 

Alluding to the lines : — 

I have given suck, and know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me, 

she says : " Even here, horrified as she is, she 
shows herself made by ambition, but not by 
nature, a perfectly savage creature. The very 
use of such a tender allusion in the midst of her 
dreadful language, persuades one unequivocally 
that she has really felt the maternal yearnings 
of a mother towards her babe, and that she con- 
sidered this action the most enormous that ever 
required the strength of human nerves for its 
perpetration. Her language to Macbeth is the 
most potently eloquent that guilt could use. It 
is only in soliloquy that she invokes the powers 
of hell to unsex her. To her husband she avows, 
and the naturalness of her language makes us 
believe her, that she had felt the instinct of filial 
as well as maternal love. But she makes her very 
virtues the means of a taunt to her lord : 'You 
have the milk of human kindness in your heart,' 
she says (in substance) to him, 'but ambition, 



LADY MA CBE TH. 1 63 

which is my ruling passion, would be also yours 
if you had courage. With a hankering desire to 
suppress, if you could, all your weaknesses of 
sympathy, you are too cowardly to will the deed, 
and can only dare to wish it. You speak of sym- 
pathies and feelings. I, too, have felt with a 
tenderness which your sex cannot know ; but I 
am resolute in my ambition to trample on all 
that obstructs my way to a crown. Look to me, 
and be ashamed of your weakness." 

" In the tremendous suspense of these mo- 
ments " (when Duncan sleeps), Mrs. Siddons 
again tells us, " while she recollects her habitual 
humanity, one trait of tender feelings is ex- 
pressed : ' Had he not resembled my father as 
he slept, I had done it.' " 

Through many pages Mrs. Siddons thus gives 
us her views of the character of Lady Macbeth ; 
sometimes verging on a pomposity that is almost 
Johnsonese. Her later criticisms of the parts 
in which she acted, bear out the statement that 
hers was not an intellectual power that strength- 
ened or expanded after the " middle of the road 
of life." This year, 1785, saw her great tri- 
umph. But we doubt if she had not already 
mastered the idea of chilling and terrifying her 
audience when, as she describes, she worked 
herself into a paroxysm of terror on first study- 



164 MRS. SIDDONS. 

ing the part as a young girl. The physical 
power and confidence to communicate that ter- 
ror were hers now, but the intellectual compre- 
hension had been there before, and certainly 
did not increase ; on the contrary, it deteriorated 
with years. The power of fresh comprehension 
passed away, and with it the elasticity and vari- 
ety of her earlier effects ; and from being singu- 
larly simple an4 direct, she became stagey and 
artificial. An artist gets certain words to utter ; 
he gets the skeleton sketch, as it were, of the 
character he has to portray, but the emphasis 
and passion he puts into them, which go direct 
from his heart to the heart of his audience, must 
be his, and his alone, and must be as little as 
possible the effect of study or deliberation. 
Thus the ingredients of terror, ambition, and 
wifely and maternal love, were the uncomplex 
emotions at first impressed on Mrs. Siddons' 
brain by the study of the part ; and those were 
the predominating influences by which she 
swayed her audience to the last day she acted it. 
Many are the records that we have of this 
great performance — all the world has heard of 
the Lady Macbeth of Mrs. Siddons — but, alas ! 
how insufficient are they to give us an idea of the 
wondrous reality. The weird-like tones, that 
sent an involuntary shudder through the house ; 



LADY MA CBE TJT. l6$ 

the bewildered melancholy ; and, lastly, the pite- 
ous cry of the strong heart broken, have come 
down to us as traditions ; but the grandeur of her 
majesty, the earnest accents as the demon of 
the character took possession of her, must ever 
remain an unknown sensation to us. One who 
saw her once act it from the side scenes, with 
the disillusion of red ochre, that was daubed on 
by her maid under his eyes ; her whisper, which 
Christopher North eloquently termed " the es- 
caping sighs and moans of the bared soul;" 
her face, the terrible mixture of hope, apprehen- 
sion, and resolution, gave him a sickly feeling of 
reality. His tongue clave to the roof of his 
mouth, in spite of the evidence of his eyes that 
the assassination was a piece of mechanical 
trickery in which the paintpot played a conspic- 
uous part. If a detective had made his appear- 
ance at the moment, he declares he would 
immediately have given himself up as particeps 
criminis, accessory before and after the event. 
The whole fiction, so inimitably played and so 
powerfully described, had kicked fact and reason 
off the throne. 

But we must return to the first night. It was 
the 2nd of February. All the intellect and fash- 
ion of the town were present : Burke, Fox, 
Wyndham, Gibbon, in the front row, and above 



1 66 MRS. SIDDONS. 

all, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who took a particular 
interest in her performance of the character. He 
had a seat in the orchestra, where he was privi- 
leged to sit on account of his deafness. He had 
constantly urged her to act Lady Macbeth 
before, and had designed her dress for the sleep- 
walking scene. Needless to say that her usual 
nervousness was magnified tenfold. All had 
declared her incapable of rendering the grander 
plays of Shakespeare. She had reached, they 
maintained, the highest point which she was 
capable of attaining, and her straining higher 
was simply presumption. She knew, therefore, 
that if she had been criticised before, the obser- 
vations now would be much more severe. The 
representation of the other parts also did not 
satisfy her. Smith, popularly known as " Gen- 
tleman Smith " because he generally did the 
light and airy part of lover in comedy parts, was 
the Macbeth, Brereton the Macduff, and Bensley 
the Banquo ; and the memory of the popularity 
of Mrs. Pritchard in the part, seemed to stand 
between her and her audience. She had already 
begged Dr. Johnson to let her know his opinion 
of Mrs. Pritchard, whom she had never seen, and 
she tells us in her "Autograph Recollections" 
that he answered : — 

" ' Madam, she was a vulgar idiot : she used 



LAD Y MA CBE TH. 1 67 

to speak of her " gownd," and she never read 
any part in a play in which she acted except 
her own. She no more thought of the play out 
of which her part was taken than a shoemaker 
thinks of the skin out of which the piece of 
leather of which he is making a pair of shoes is 
cut/ Is it possible, thought I, that Mrs. Pritch- 
ard, the greatest of all the Lady Macbeths, 
should never have read the play ? and I con- 
cluded that the Doctor must have been misin- 
formed ; but I was afterwards assured by a gen- 
tleman, a friend of Mrs. Pritchard, that he had 
supped with her one night after she had acted 
Lady Macbeth, and that she declared she had 
never perused the whole tragedy. I cannot 
believe it." 

It would seem difficult to such a worker as 
Mrs. Siddons to conceive the possibility of a 
woman not mastering the whole play if she had 
to act the part of Lady Macbeth, but we think 
Dr. Johnson must have been too severe when 
he called an actress who for years had held the 
stage with Garrick " a vulgar idiot." And there 
is little doubt that the tradition of her acting in 
the part of Lady Macbeth still had a firm hold 
on the memory of the audience. As a proof of 
this we will here quote an incident that occur- 
red the first night : — 



1 68 MRS. SID DONS. 

" Just as I had finished my toilette, and was 
pondering with fearfulness my first appearance 
in the grand fiendish part, comes Mr. Sheridan 
knocking at my door, and insisting, in spite of 
all my entreaties not to be interrupted at this 
tremendous moment, to be admitted. He would 
not be denied admittance, for he protested he 
must speak to me on a circumstance which so 
deeply concerned my own interest, that it was 
of the most serious nature. Well, after much 
squabbling I was compelled to admit him, that 
I might dismiss him the sooner, and compose 
myself before the play began. 

" But what was my distress and astonishment 
when I found that he wanted me, even at this 
moment of anxiety and terror, to adopt another 
mode of acting the sleeping scene ! He told me 
that he had heard with the greatest surprise and 
concern that I meant to act it without holding 
the candle in my hand ; and when I argued the 
impracticability of washing out that 'damned 
spot ' that was certainly implied by both her 
own words and those of her gentlewoman, he 
insisted that if I did put the candle out of my 
hand it would be thought a presumptuous inno- 
vation, as Mrs. Pritchard had always retained it 
in hers. My mind, however, was made up, and 
it was then too late to make me alter it, for I 



LADY MACBETH. 1 69 

was too agitated to adopt another method. My 
deference for Mr. Sheridan's taste and judgment 
was, however, so great, that, had he proposed 
the alteration whilst it was possible for me to 
change my own plan, I should have yielded to 
his suggestion; though even then it would have 
been against my own opinion, and my observa- 
tion of the accuracy with which somnambulists 
perform all the acts of waking persons. 

"The scene, of course, was acted as I had 
myself conceived it, and the innovation, as Mr. 
Sheridan called it, was received with approba- 
tion. Mr. Sheridan himself came to me after 
the play, and most ingenuously congratulated 
me on my obstinacy." 

Let us try to recall the vision of Mrs. Sid- 
dons as she acted Lady Macbeth that night. It 
was in 1785. She was thirty years of age. The 
"timid tottering girl," who had' first appeared as 
Portia on that stage, was now a queenly woman 
in the full meridian of her stately beauty. Suc- 
cess had developed her intellectually and physi- 
cally, and she walked the stage in the plenitude 
of her power, almost like some superhuman 
being. 

Her dress in the first and second acts was a 
heavy black robe, with a broad border, which 
ran from her shoulders down to her feet, of the 



170 MRS. SIDD0A T S. 

most vivid crimson, over which fell a long white 
veil. In the third she changed this costume for 
another black dress, with great gold bands 
lacing it across, and gold ornaments round her 
neck and in her hair. Both of these dresses 
strike us as being " stagey," but she never had 
the art of dressing herself : so great, however, 
was her power, that all minor accessories of 
dress and scenery were forgotten. For the 
sleep-walking scene Sir Joshua had designed 
clouds of white drapery swathing the pale drawn 
face ; they lent an appalling weirdness to her 
appearance, whilst the glassy stare she managed 
to throw into her eyes completed the horror. 

The audience were spellbound ; they only 
saw that woe-worn face, and heard that voice, 
broken with agony and remorse. It was a night 
of nights, for her and them, and yet no applause, 
no success, turned her from concentration on 
the purpose and issue of her art. 

" While standing up before my glass," she 
tells us, " and taking off my mantle, a diverting 
circumstance occurred to chase away the feelings 
of the anxious night, for, while I was repeating, 
and endeavoring to call to mind the appropriate 
tone and action to the following words, l Here's 
the smell of blood still,' my dresser innocently 
exclaimed, ' Dear me, Ma'am, how very hysteri- 



LADY MA CB E TH. 1 7 1 

cal you are to-night ! I protest and vow, Ma'am, 
it was not blood, but rose-pink and water ; for I 
saw the property-man mix it up with my own 
eyes.' " 

These were, indeed, the palmy days of the 
English stage. With a self-collected, coura- 
geous energy, artists then saw and recognized 
the greatest, and strained every nerve to attain 
it. Scenic effect was of minor importance ; the 
development of mental action, the portrayal of 
passion, were the end and aim of the actor's art, 
to which everything else was subsidiary. They 
spent years upon the evolving of one heroic con- 
ception, not with regard to its details of uphol- 
stery and scene-painting, but with regard to the 
presentment of the poet's imagination which they 
undertook to represent. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Needless to say that in those days, when 
genius was worshipped and the entrance *to the 
most exclusive circles of society accorded to tal- 
ent of every description, the social homage paid 
to Mrs. Siddons was of the most enthusiastic 
description, passing sometimes the bounds of 
good taste. The door of the lodgings she occu- 
pied in the Strand the first year she acted was 
soon beset by various persons quite unknown to 
her, some of whom actually forced their way 
into her drawing-room, in spite of remonstrance 
or opposition. 

This was as inconvenient as it was offensive ; 
for as she usually acted three times a week, and 
had, besides, to attend the rehearsals, she had 
but little time to spend unnecessarily. None 
were more capable, however, than she of keep- 
ing vulgar curiosity at a respectful distance. She 
gives us a comic account of an interview that 
took place between her and some of these intru- 
sive individuals : — 
(172) 



FRIENDS. 173 

" One morning, though I had previously given 
orders not to be interrupted, my servant entered 
the room in a great hurry, saying, ' Ma'am, I am 
very sorry to tell you there are some ladies below 
who say they must see you, and it is impossible 
for me to prevent it. I have told them over and 
over again that you are particularly engaged, 
but all in vain, and now, Ma'am, you may actu- 
ally hear them on the stairs.' I felt extremely 
indignant at such unparalleled impertinence, 
and, before the servant had done speaking to 
me, a tall, elegant, invalid-looking person pre- 
sented herself (whom I am afraid, I did not 
receive very graciously), and after her four more, 
in slow succession. A very awkward silence 
took place. Presently the first lady spoke. 
' You must think it strange,' she said, ' to see a 
person entirely unknown to you intrude in this 
manner upon your privacy ; but, you must 
know, I am in a very delicate state of health, 
and my physician won't let me go to the theatre 
to see you, so I am come to look at you here.' 
She accordingly sat down to look, and I to be 
looked at, for a few painful moments, when she 
arose and apologized." There is something 
awful that sends a cold shiver through us as the 
Tragic Muse tells us, " I was in no humor to 
overlook such insolence, and so let her depart in 



*74 



MRS. SID DONS. 



silence." We can picture her contemptuous 
scorn under the circumstances. But it was not 
only in her own home she had to pay the pen- 
alty of fame ; the theatre was mobbed outside 
every evening by a crowd anxious to see her 
walk across the pavement to her carriage ; her 
dresses were copied, and the dressmakers to 
whom she went were importuned to make for 
all the fashionable ladies. Not only in these 
early days, but all her life, Mrs. Siddons kept a 
position unexampled for one of her profession. 
The house she occupied in Gore Street during 
her second season was, when she entertained, 
filled with all that was brilliant in literature and 
fashion ; and later at Westbourne Cottage, and 
when she was in Pall Mail, Campbell tells us of 
rows of " coaches and chairs " standing outside 
her door. Invitations to most of the great houses 
in London poured in upon her, and she herself 
gives a comic account of the manner in which 
she was mobbed by her fashionable devotees at 
an assembly at the erratic Miss Monkton's 
(afterwards Lady Cork), one of the " Blues " 
who made oddity of dress, appearance, and man- 
ner a study, and the running after " notorious 
folk" a science. 

The young actress had steadily declined 
many invitations, feeling that the moments 



FRIENDS. 175 

snatched from her profession ought to be de- 
voted to the care of her children. Miss Monk- 
ton, however, insisted on her coming one Sunday 
evening, assuring her that there would only be 
some half-a-dozen friends to meet her. 

" The appointed Sunday evening came. I 
went to her very nearly in undress, at the early 
hour of eight, on account of my little boy, whom 
she desired me to bring with me, more for effect, 
I suspect, than for his beaux yeux. I found 
with her, as I had been taught to expect, three 
or four ladies of my acquaintance ; and the time 
passed in agreeable conversation till I had 
remained much longer than I had apprehended. 

" I was, of course, preparing speedily to 
/eturn home, when incessantly repeated thun- 
derings at the door, and the sudden influx of 
such a throng of people as I had never before 
seen collected in any private house, counterac- 
ted every attempt that I could make for escape. 
I was therefore obliged, in a state of indescrib- 
able mortification, to sit quietly down till I 
know not what hour in the morning ; but for 
hours before my departure the room I sat in 
was so painfully crowded that the people abso- 
lutely stood on the chairs, round the walls, that 
they might look over their neighbors' heads to 
stare at me ; and if it had not been for the be 



176 MRS. SIDDONS. 

nevolent politeness of Mr. Erskine, who had 
been acquainted with my arrangement, I know 
not what weakness I might have been surprised 
into, especially being tormented, as I was, by 
the ridiculous interrogations of some learned 
ladies who were called ' Blues,' the meaning of 
which title I did not at that time appreciate ; 
much less did I comprehend the meaning of the 
greater part of their learned talk. These pro- 
found ladies, however, furnished much amuse- 
ment to the town for many weeks after — nay, I 
believe I might say for the whole winter. Glad 
enough was I at length to find myself at peace 
in my own bed-chamber." 

Dr. Doran makes this scene take place at Mrs. 
Montagu's ; but besides the victim's own ac- 
count of this remarkable evening, that gives 
such a picture of the times, we have those of 
Cumberland and of Miss Burney. Cumberland, 
in the Observer, disguising the people under 
feigned names, tells us : — 

I now joined a cluster of people who had crowded round an 
actress who sat upon a sofa leaning on her elbow in a pensive 
attitude, and seemed to be counting the sticks of her fan, whilst 
they were vieing with each other in the most extravagant enco- 
miums. 

"You were adorable last night in Belvidera," says a pert 
young parson with a high toupee. "I sat in Lady Blubber's 
box, and I can assure you she, and her daughters, too, wept 



FRIENDS. 177 

most bitterly. But then that charming mad scene — but, by my 
soul, it was a chef cPauvre ! Pray, Madam, give me leave to 
ask you, was you really in your senses ? " 

" I strove to do it as well as I could," answered the actress. 

" Do you intend to play comedy next season ? " says a lady, 
stepping up to her with great eagerness. 

" I shall do as the manager bids me," she replied. 

" I should be curious to know," says an elderly lady, "which 
part, Madam, you yourself esteem the best you play ? " 

" I shall always endeavor to make that which I am about the 
best." 

An elegant and enchanting young woman of fashion now 
took her turn of interrogating, and, with many apologies, beg- 
ged to be informed by her if she studied those enchanting 
looks and attitudes before a glass? " 

" I never study anything but my author." 

" Then you practise them at rehearsals ? " rejoined the ques- 
tioner. 

" I seldom rehearse at all." 

" She has fine eyes," says a tragic poet to an eminent painter. 

Vanessa now came up, and, desiring leave to introduce a 
young muse to Melpomene, presented a girl in a white frock, 
with a fillet of flowers tied round her hair, which hung down 
her back in flowing curls. The young muse made a low obei- 
sance, and, with the most unembarrassed voice and countenance, 
whilst the poor actress was covered in blushes, and suffering 
torture from the eyes of all in the room, broke forth as f ol - 
lows : — 

" O thou, whom Nature calls her own, 
Pride of the stage and favorite of the town ! " 

Miss Burney, who was present, also contrib- 
utes her account of what took place : — 

My father and I were both engaged to Miss Monckton's ; so 
was Sir Joshua, who accompanied us. We found Mrs. Siddons, . 
the actress, there. She is a woman of excellent character, and, 
12 



178 AfRS. SID DONS. 

therefore, I am very glad she is thus patronised, since Mrs. Ab- 
ington, and so many frail fair ones, have been thus noticed by 
the great. She behaved with great propriety, very calm, mod- 
est, quiet, and unaffected. She has a very fine countenance, 
and her eyes look both intelligent and soft. She has, however 
a steadiness in her manner and deportment by no means engag 
ing. Mrs. Thrale, who was there, said : 

" Why, this is a leaden goddess we are all worshipping ; how- 
ever, we shall soon gild it." 

A lady who sat near me then began a dialogue with Mr. 
Erskine, who had placed himself exactly opposite to Mrs. Sid- 
dons, and they debated together upon her manner of studying 
her parts, disputing upon Hie point with great warmth, yet not 
only forbearing to ask Mrs. Siddons herself which was right, 
but quite overpowering her with their loquacity when she 
attempted, unasked, to explain the matter. Most vehement 
praise of all she did followed, and the lady turned to me and 
said : 

" What invitation, Miss Burney, is here for genius to display 
itself? Everybody, I hear, is at work for Mrs. Siddons; but 
if you would work for her, what an inducement to excel you 
would both of you have. Dr. Burney " 

" Oh, pray, Madam," cried I, " don't say to him " 

" Oh, but I will. If my influence can do you any mischief 
you may depend upon having it." 

She then repeated what she had said to my father, and he 
instantly said : 

" Your ladyship may be sure of my interest." 

I whispered afterwards to know who she was, and heard she 
was Lady Lucan* 

* It was the same Lady Lucan who was said once to have 
asked the actress : " Pray, Madam, when you are to prepare 
yourself in a character, what is y owe primary object of attention, 
the superstructure, as it may be called, or the ' foundation ' of 
the part ? " 



FRIENDS. 1/9 

It is amusing to see how conceited Fanny 
Burney always must turn every incident to her- 
self. When she did work for Mrs. Siddons, the 
play was received with roars of laughter, and 
acted but one night. 

We find a clue in the above description to 
Mrs. Siddons' unpopularity. Little Burney, with 
the frizzled head, and Mrs. Thrale, who " skip- 
ped about like a young kid, all vivacity and 
sprightliness," could not understand the " stead- 
iness in her manner," and her dignified way of 
checking intrusive admirers. No one appreci- 
ated admiration and love from her intimate 
friends more than Mrs. Siddons, but to the ado- 
ration of general society she was icy cold. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently went to see 
her act, and she was a welcome guest at the 
house in Leicester Fields. 

"He approved," she writes, "very much of 
my costumes, and of my hair without powder, 
which at that time was used in great profusion, 
with a reddish brown tint, and a great quantity 
of pomatum, which, well kneaded together, mod- 
elled the fair ladies' tresses into large curls like 
demi-cannon. My locks were generally braided 
into a small compass, so as to ascertain the size 
and shape of my head, which to a painter's eye 
was, of course, an agreeable departure from the 



180 MRS. SID DONS, 

mode. My short waist, too, was to him a pleas- 
ing contrast to the long stiff stays and hoop 
petticoats which were then the fashion, even on 
the stage, and it obtained his unqualified appro- 
bation. He always sat in the orchestra ; and 
in that place were to be seen — O glorious con- 
stellation ! — Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, and Wind- 
ham." 

It was at Reynolds's she first met Edmund 
Burke. The story goes that she was reading 
Milton for the benefit of the company, when she 
heard the great orator's deep melodious tones 
repeat, as she closed the book, the lines begin- 
ning with " The angel ceased." That wonder- 
ful face, full of fiery power, was to be seen 
amongst those surrounding her. He was after- 
wards frequently present while she sat to Rey- 
nolds for her portrait. She ever counted mer- 
curial Sheridan as a friend, in spite of the way 
in which he treated her. She loved his beauti- 
ful, gentle wife, and some of her happiest hours 
were spent in their society. She there put off 
all her stateliness, and became the joyous- 
hearted young girl of the old Bath days. 

Sir Thomas Lawrence cherished all his life a 
feeling that was almost akin to adoration for 
Mrs. Siddons' genius and beauty. He painted 
her and John Kemble in every dress and every 



FRIENDS. 1 8 1 

pose. He was engaged subsequently to two of 
her daughters, first one and then the other. He 
proposed to the eldest daughter, Sarah ; was 
accepted ; but, before long, became miserable and 
dejected, and at last confessed to Mrs. Siddons 
that he had mistaken his feelings — that her 
younger daughter, and not the elder, was the 
object of his affection. Fanny Kemble says : — 

Sarah gave up her lover, and he became engaged to the sec- 
ond — Maria. Both, however, died of consumption. Maria, 
the youngest, an exceedingly beautiful girl, died first, and on 
her death-bed made her sister promise that she would never 
marry Lawrence. The death of her daughters broke off all 
connection between Sir Thomas Lawrence and my aunt, and 
from that time they never saw or had any intercourse with one 
another. Yet not long after this Mrs. Siddons, dining with us 
one day, asked my mother how the sketch Lawrence was mak- 
ing of me was getting on. After my mother's reply, my aunt 
remained silent for some time, and then, laying her hand on 
my father's arm, said : " Charles, when I die, I wish to be car- 
ried to my grave by you and Lawrence." 

Lawrence reached his grave when she was yet tottering on 
the brink of hers. 

On my twentieth birthday, which occurred soon after my first 
appearance, Lawrence sent me a magnificent proof plate of my 
aunt as the " Tragic Muse," beautifully framed, and with this 
inscription : " This portrait, by England's greatest painter, of 
the noblest subject of his pencil, is presented to her niece and 
worthy successor by her most faithful humble friend and ser- 
vant, Lawrence." When my mother saw this, she exclaimed 
at it, and said : " I am surprised he ever brought himself to 
write those wcrds ' worthy successor.' " 

A few days after, Lawrence begged me to let him have the 



1 82 MRS. SID DONS. 

print again, as he was not satisfied with the finish of the frame. 
It was sent to him, and when it came back he had effaced the 
words in which he had admitted any worthy successor to his 
" Tragic Muse ; " and Mr. H , who was at that time his sec- 
retary, told me that Lawrence had the print lying with that 
inscription in his drawing-room for several days before sending 
it to me, and had said to him, " I cannot bear to look at it." 

Among these artists, poets, statesmen, who 
were continually present at her representations 
and attended afterwards at her dressing-room 
door to pay their respects, in later years Byron 
might frequently be seen. He declared her to be 
the "beau ideal of acting," and said, "Miss 
O'Neill I would not see for fear of weakening 
the impression made by the queen of tragedians. 
When I read Lady Macbeth's part I have Mrs. 
Siddons before me, and imagination even sup- 
plies her voice, whose tones were superhuman 
and power over the heart supernatural." On 
another occasion, he is reported to have said 
that of actors Cook was the most natural, Kem- 
ble the most supernatural, and Kean the medium 
between the two, but that Mrs. Siddons was 
worth them all put together. 

The first year she acted, " the gentlemen of 
the bar adorned her brows with laurel," as she 
says herself. The " laurel " took the substan- 
tial form of a hundred guineas and a wreath 
presented by two barristers. She declared it to 



FRIENDS. 183 

be the most shining circumstance of her life, 
and alluded modestly to her " poor abilities " and 
insufficient claims. The gentlemen of Brookes's 
Club also made up a handsome present. 

" Mrs. Siddons continues to be the mode," 
Horace Walpole writes, " and to be modest and 
sensible. She declines great dinners, and says 
the business and cares of her family take her 
whole time. When Lord Carlisle carried her 
the tribute money from Brookes's, he said she 
was not manieree enough. ' I suppose she was 
grateful ? ' said my niece, Lady Maria." 

It is easy to imagine the difficulty she experi- 
enced in keeping her fame untarnished amidst 
that hot-bed of vice, Covent Garden, and amidst 
all the adulation lavished on her. It is impossi- 
ble, indeed, to say how many enemies she made 
by rejecting inopportune advances and by ex- 
citing jealousies and envy ; but the worst they 
could ever allege was that she was hard and 
haughty. She was continually on her guard. 
" One would as soon think of making love to 
the Archbishop of Canterbury "was said of her 
later ; but in the early days of her first appear- 
ance at Drury Lane she was obliged often to 
have recourse to an outspoken rebuff to aspirants 
to her favor. 

As a curious instance of the insidious manner 



1 84 MRS. SID DONS. 

in which attacks were sometimes made to win 
her regard, John Taylor relates that one morn- 
ing, on calling on her, he found her in the act of 
burning some letters that had been returned to 
her by the executors of the individual to whom 
they were addressed. He sat down to help her, 
and, in doing so, a printed copy of some scanda- 
lous verses on her that had appeared in the St. 
James s Gazette dropped out. Some lines in the 
handwriting of the deceased poet that were writ- 
ten on the top of the page proved the author, 
and proved that attacker and defender had been 
one and the same person. In talking the matter 
over afterwards, Mrs. Siddons recalled to mind 
that the same person had once endeavored to 
undermine her affection for her husband by tell- 
ing her tales of his infidelity. 

We cannot resist giving here a letter which 
Mrs. Siddons received many years after her first 
appearance on the stage, when one might have 
thought her age and reputation a sufficient pro- 
tection against such addresses : — 

Loveliest of women! In Belvidera, Isabella, Juliet, and Ca- 
lista, I have admired you until my fancy threatened to burst, 
and the strings of my imagination were* ready to crack to 
pieces ; but, as Mrs. Siddons, I love you to madness, and until 
my heart and soul are overwhelmed with fondness and desire. 
Say not that time has placed any difference in years between 
you and me. The youths of her day saw no wrinkles upon. the 



FRIENDS. 185 

brow of Ninon de l'Enclos. It is for vulgar souls alone to 
grow old ; but you shall flourish in eternal youth, amidst the 
war of elements, and the crash of worlds. 
May 2nd, Barley Mow, Salisbury Square. 

So pertinacious became the persecutions of 
this young Irishman — for he was an Irishman — 
that she was obliged to seek the protection of 
the law. His bursting imagination was kept in 
check for some little time by the sobering effects 
of a term of imprisonment. 

Sometimes, also, her would-be adorers boasted 
of favors never received. 

" If you should meet a Mr. Seton," she wrote 
to Dr. Whalley, "who lived in Leicester Square, 
you must not be surprised to hear him talk of 
being very well with my sister and myself ; for, 
since I have been here, I have heard the old 
fright has been giving it out in town. You will 
find him rather an unlikely person to be so great 
a favorite with women." 

Amongst fashionable ladies she counted many 
and constant friends. The doors of Mrs. Mon- 
tagu's house (centre of intellect and fashion) 
were always open to her ; and we hear of her 
there on one occasion when all the " Blues" 
swarmed round their " Queen Bee," and she 
wore her celebrated dress embroidered with the 
"ruins of Palmyra." 



I 86 MRS. SID DONS. 

Mrs. Darner (Anne Conway), daughter of 
General Conway, the celebrated sculptress and 
woman of fashion, was also one of her most inti- 
mate friends, and later in life the actress spent 
many hours in her studio when bitten herself 
with the love of modelling. Campbell says that 
Mrs. Siddons' love of modelling in clay, began 
at Birmingham ; and he tells a story of her go- 
ing into a shop there, seeing a bust of herself, 
which the shopman, not knowing who she was, 
told her was the likeness of the greatest actress 
in the world. Mrs. Siddons bought it, and, 
thinking she could make a better replica of her 
own features, set to work and made modelling a 
favorite pursuit. Whether the impetus was 
thus given we hardly know, but it was the fash- 
ion of the time. Mrs. Darner, who was declared 
by her admirers " to be as great a sculptor as 
Mr. Nollekens," and many other dainty fine 
ladies, put on mob caps and canvas aprons, 
wielding mallet and chisel, and kneading wax 
and clay with their small white hands. Mrs. 
Siddons was often the guest of Mrs. Darner at 
Strawberry Hill. 

In her circle of women friends, we must not for- 
get, either, the beautiful, fascinating, stuttering 
Mrs. Inchbald, the dear muse of her and her 
brother John. It is said that, coming off the 



FRIENDS. 187 

stage one evening, she was about to sit down by 
Mrs. Siddons in the green-room, when, suddenly 
looking at her magnificent neighbor, she said, 
"No, I won't s-s-s-sit by you; you're t-t-t-too 
handsome!" in which respect she certainly need 
have feared no competition, and less with Mrs. 
Siddons than any one, their style of beauty being 
so absolutely dissimilar. 

Miss Seward was one of the adorers of her 
circle, but, in spite of the pages of rhapsodies on 
the subject " of the most glorious of her sex," 
written to " her dear Lichfieldians " and the odes 
poured out to " Isabella" and "Euphrasia," it is 
a significant fact that we do not find one letter 
personally to Mrs. Siddons, nor one from Mrs. 
Siddons addressed to her. Practical and sin- 
cere herself, the great actress disliked "gush" 
of all sorts. Miss Seward wrote, " My dear 
friends, I arrived here at five. Think of my mor- 
tification! Mrs. Siddons in Belvidera to-night, 
as is supposed, for the last time before she lies 
in. I asked Mrs. Barrow if it would be impossi- 
ble to get into the pit. " O heaven ! " said she, 
"impossible in any part of the house!" Mrs. 

B is, I find, in the petit sonfier circle ; so the 

dear plays oratorios, and will be a little too 
much for my wishes, out of question. Adieu ! 
Adieu ! " 



1 88 MRS. SIDDONS. 

The Lichfieldian incense was a little too pun- 
gent for the nostrils to which it was offered. The 
great actress wrote, rather weariedly to her friend 
Dr. Whalley :— 

" Believe me, my dear Sir, it is not want of 
inclination, but opportunity, that prevents my 
more frequent acknowledgments : but need I 
tell you this ? No ; you generously judge of my 
heart by your own. I fear I must have appeared 
very insensible, and, therefore, unworthy the 
honor Miss Seward has done me ; but the per- 
petual round of business in which I am engaged 
is incredible. Shall I trespass on your goodness 
to say that I feel as I ought on that occasion ?" 

She then alludes to the kindness of the King 
and Queen which, sometimes to an inconvenient 
extent, was shown towards her all her life. 

" I believe I told you that the Queen had gra- 
ciously put my son down on her list for the 
Charterhouse ; and she has done me the honor 
to stamp my reputation by her honored appro- 
bation. They have seen me in all my characters 
but Isabella, which they have commanded for 
Monday next ; but, having seen me in Jane 
Shore last night, and, judging very humanely 
that too quick repetitions of such exertions may 
injure my health, the King himself most gra- 
ciously sent to the managers, and said he must 



FRIENDS. 189 

deny himself the pleasure of seeing Isabella till 
Tuesday. This is the second time he has dis- 
tinguished me in this manner. You see a vast 
deal of me in the papers, of my appointment at 
Court, and the like. All groundless ; but I have 
the pleasure to inform you that my success has 
exceeded even my hopes. My sister is engaged, 
and is successful. God be praised for all His 
mercies ! You will think me an egotist, I fear. 
I shall certainly be at Bath in the Passion Week, 
if I am alive. I count the hours till then." 

Our readers may like to know that when their 
Majesties, with the Prince of Wales, the Prin- 
cess Royal, and the Princess Augusta went in 
state, on October 8th, 1783, to see Mrs. Siddons 
play Isabella, the Sovereign and his wife sat 
under a dome covered with crimson velvet and 
gold ; the heir to the throne sat under another 
of blue velvet and silver ; and the young Prin- 
cesses under a third of blue satin and silver 
fringe. George III. wore " a plain suit of Qua- 
ker-colored clothes, with gold buttons; the 
Queen, a white satin robe, with a head-dress 
which was ornamented by a great number of dia- 
monds ; the Princess Royal was dressed in a 
white and blue figured silk, and Princess Au- 
gusta in a rose-colored and white silk of the 
same pattern as her sister's, having both their 



190 AfKS. SID DONS. 

head-dresses richly ornamented with diamonds. 
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had a 
suit of dark blue Geneva velvet, richly trimmed 
with gold lace." 

We are further told that on this occasion Mrs. 
Siddons was much indisposed previous to her 
going on the stage ; and, after the curtain drop- 
ped at the end of the fifth act, was so very ill as 
not to be capable of walking to her dressing- 
room without support. Notwithstanding her 
suffering, she went through the part as if in- 
spired. The Queen was so affected at her per- 
formance, that His Majesty seemed alarmed, 
and often diverted her attention from situations 
and passages that were likely to distress her. 

The following snarl was found among Horace 
Walpole's papers : — 

For the " Morning Chronicle." On the King commanding 
the Tragedy of " The Grecian Daughter " on Thursday the 2nd 
inst. — Jan. ioth, 1783. 

Epigrammatic. 
Siddons to see — King, Lords, and Commons run, 
Glad to forget that Britain is undone. 
The Jesuit Shelburne, the apostate Fox, 
And Bulls and Bears, together in a Box. 
Thurlow neglects his promises to friends ; 
And scribbling Townsend no more letters sends. 
Cits leave their feasts, and sots desert their wine; 
Each youth cries " Charming ! " and each maid, " Divine ! " 
See, of false tears, a copious torrent flows, 



FRIENDS. I9I 

But not one real, for their country's woes. 
The club of spendthrifts, the rapacious bar 
Of words, not arms, support the bloodless war. 
Let Spain Gibraltar get, our islands France, 
So Siddons acts, or Vestris leads the dance. 
Kun on, mad nation ! pleasure's frantic round ; 
For acting, fiddling, dancing be renown'd ! 
Soon foreign fleets shall rule the Western main; 
George fill no throne but that of Drury Lane. 

— Merlin. 

George III. admired her, he said, "for her 
repose," adding, " Garrick could never stand 
still ; he was a great fidget." The Queen told 
her, in broken English, that the only resource 
was to turn away from the stage ; the acting 
was, indeed, too "disagreeable." She was fre- 
quently summoned to read at the Palace, and to 
give lessons in elocution to the young Prin- 
cesses. 

In Mrs. Siddons' memoranda, we are given an 
account of one of these readings. She felt ex- 
tremely awkward, she tells us, in the " sack " 
with "hoop and treble ruffles which it was con- 
sidered necessary to put on, according to court 
etiquette." On her arrival she was led into an 
ante-chamber, where there were ladies of rank 
whom she knew, while presently the King ap- 
peared, drawing one of his little daughters in a 
"go*cart." This little princess was about three 
years old ; and when Mrs. Siddons remarked to 



192 MAS. SID DONS. 

the lady standing next her that she longed to 

kiss the child, it held out its tiny hand so 

early had she learned this lesson of royalty. 
Mrs. Siddons was obliged to stand during the 
whole of a lengthened evening, preferring this 
to their offers of refreshment in an adjoining 
room, as she was terrified at the thought of re- 
tiring backwards through " the whole length of a 
long apartment, with highly-polished, slippery 
floor." Her Majesty privately expressed much 
astonishment at seeing her so collected, and was 
pleased to say that the actress had conducted 
herself as though she had been used to a court. 
" I had certainly often personated queens," was 
the actress's remark. 

It may be mentioned as a remarkable fact 
that the first person outside the royal family who 
seems to have entertained a suspicion that in- 
sanity was creeping over the King was Mrs. Sid- 
dons. During a visit she paid to Windsor Castle 
at the time, the King, without any apparent mo- 
tive, placed in her hands a sheet of paper bearing 
nothing but his signature — an incident which 
struck her as so unaccountable, that she imme- 
diately carried it to the Queen, who gratefully 
thanked her for her discretion. 

But more than all the attentions of royalty, 
more than all the flattery lavished upon her by 



FRIENDS. 193 

great people, more than all the applause and 
worship she received from the crowds who be- 
sieged the theatre, did she value the sparingly 
awarded praises and sincere shake of the shabby, 
noble, snuff-covered hand of "the Great Bear," 
before whose growl everyone trembled. 

In Boswell's "Life of Johnson " he tells us the 
Doctor had a singular prejudice against players, 
"futile fellows" whom he rated no higher than 
rope-dancers or ballad singers. This prejudice, 
however, did not prevent him from hobbling off 
to see poor crippled Mrs. Porter when forsaken 
by all the rest of the world. The beginning of 
his liking for Mrs. Siddons is thoroughly char- 
acteristic. He always talked to his circle of lady 
adorers of that jade, Mrs. Siddons, until one of 
the " fair females " suggested that he must see 
the actress. 

" But, indeed, Dr. Johnson," said Miss Monck- 
ton, "you must see Mrs. Siddons. Won't you 
see her in some fine part ? " 

" Why, if I must, Madam, I have no choice." 

" She says, Sir, she shall be very much afraid 
of you." 

" Madam, that cannot be true." 

"Not true?" said Miss Monckton, staring. 
" Yes, it is." 

"It cannot be, Madam." 
13 



ig4 MRS. SID DONS. 

" But she said so to me ; I heard her say it 

myself." 

"Madam, it is not possible ; remember, there- 
fore, in future, that even fiction should be sup- 
ported by probability." 

Miss Monckton looked all amazement, but in- 
sisted upon the truth of what she had said. 

14 1 do not believe, Madam," said he, warmly, 
"that she knows my name." 

" Oh, that is rating her too low," said a gen- 
tleman stranger. 

" By not knowing my name," continued he, 
" I do not mean literally, but that when she 
sees it abused in a newspaper she may possibly 
recollect that she has seen it abused in a news- 
paper before." 

"Well, Sir," said Miss Monckton, "but you 
must see her for all this." 

" Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go ; see 
her, I shall not, nor hear her ; but I'll go, and 
that will do. The last time I was at a play I 
was ordered there by Mrs. Abingdon, or a Mrs. 
Somebody, I do not well remember who, but I 
placed myself in the middle of the first row of 
the front boxes, to show that when I was called 
I came." 

He kept his promise, and the huge, slovenly 
figure, clad in a greasy brown coat and coarse 



FRIENDS. 195 

black worsted stockings, was several times seen 
taking handfuls of snuff, and criticising the 
actress in his outspoken, growling fashion. She 
then paid him a visit in his den at Bolt Court, 
to which he alludes in one of his letters to Mrs. 
Thrale : — 

" Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved 
with great modesty and propriety, and left noth- 
ing behind her to be censured or despised. 
Neither praise nor money, the two powerful 
corruptors of mankind, seemed to have depraved 
her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her 
brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me 
very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays, 
and she told me her intention of exhibiting this 
winter the character of Constance, Catherine, 
and Isabella, in Shakespeare." 

Boswell gives us also the account of what took 
place : — 

" When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, 
there happened to be no chair ready for her, 
which he observing, said with a smile : ' Madam, 
you who so often occasion a want of seats to 
other people will the more easily excuse the 
want of one yourself.' 

" Having placed himself by her, he with great 
good humor entered upon a consideration of the 
English drama; and, among other enquiries, 



196 MRS. SIDDONS. 

particularly asked her which of Shakespeare's 
characters she was most pleased with. Upon 
her answering that she thought the character of 
Queen Catherine in " Henry VIII. the most 
natural : ' I think so too, Madam,' said he ; ' and 
whenever you perform it I will once more hob- 
ble out to the theatre myself.' Mrs. Siddons 
promised she would do herself the honor of act- 
ing his favorite part for him, but was unable to 
do so before grand old Samuel was laid to his 
last rest." 



CHAPTER X. 

1782 TO I798. 

Mrs. Siddons' life between the years 1785 
in 1798 was passed in the professional tread- 
mill, and her history during this period is best 
told by an account of the characters she person- 
ated. 

After her appearance as Lady Macbeth on 
February 2nd, she chose to act Desdemona to 
her brother's Othello, and, to everyone's surprise, 
acted it with a tenderness, playfulness, and sim- 
plicity hardly to be expected of the majestic 
actress, who had terrified her audience by her rep- 
resentation of the Thane of Cawdor's wife. Camp- 
bell tells us that even years after, when he saw 
her play this part at Edinburgh, not recognising 
at first who was acting, he was spellbound by her 
" exquisite gracefulness," and thought it impos- 
sible " this soft, sweet creature could be the Sid- 
dons," until by the emotion and applause of the 
audience he knew it could be no other. 

Unfortunately, in her first representation of 
this part she was carelessly given a damp bed 

(197) 



198 MRS. SIDDONS. 

to lie on in the death scene, and caught so severe 
a cold as almost to threaten rheumatic fever. 
From this time her delicacy seems to date, for 
we now find her continually complaining and 
incapacitated from appearing by ill health. 

After Desdemona she appeared in Rosalind, 
which we can dismiss with the criticism of 
Young, the actor : " Her Rosalind wanted nei- 
ther playfulness nor feminine softness, but it 
was totally without archness — not because she 
did not properly conceive it ; but how could 
such a countenance be arch ? " Her dress, too, 
excited great amusement — " mysterious nonde- 
script garments." We have a letter of hers to 
Hamilton the artist, asking "if he would be so 
good as to make her a slight sketch for a boy's 
dress to conceal the person as much as possi- 
ble." The woman who was capable of taking 
this view of the representation of Rosalind was 
not capable of acting the part. 

Imogen, Ophelia, Catherine in the "Taming 
of the Shrew," and Cordelia, all acted with her 
brother, followed in quick succession. This 
hard work entitled her to a salary of twenty-four 
pounds ten shillings weekly, while her brother 
drew ten pounds. Not contented with this, 
however, she made a tour in the provinces, Liv- 
erpool, Manchester, Birmingham, &c. These 



1782 TO 1798. I99 

country tours were not only fatiguing in con- 
sequence of the amount of travelling to be 
done, but also in consequence of the unsympa- 
thetic audiences to be faced, and the discomfort 
of country theatres. The system, also, of ab- 
sorbing all the profits of provincial actors made 
her very unpopular in the profession. Some 
ridiculous stories are related of these tours. 

When playing the "sleeping scene " in "Mac- 
beth," at Leeds, a boy who had been sent for 
some porter appeared by mistake on the stage, 
and walking up, presented it to her. In vain 
she motioned him away, in vain he was called 
off behind the scenes ; the house roared with 
laughter, and all illusion was dispelled for the 
rest of the evening. On another occasion at 
Leeds, when about to drink poison on the stage, 
one of the audience in the gallery howled out 
"Soop it oop, lass ! " She endeavored to frown 
down the interrupter, but her own solemnity 
gave way. She was also at country theatres 
often subjected to bearing the brunt of a local 
quarrel or facetiousness directed against a mem- 
ber or members of the audience. Once at Liv- 
erpool the play of "Jane Shore," which had sent 
London audiences into fits of sobbing and hys- 
terics, was announced. The house was full, and 
Miss Mellon, from whom we have the story, says 



200 MRS. SID DONS. 

the actors behind the scenes expected a repeti- 
tion of the same emotion ; but the people in the 
gallery, seeing the principal merchants with 
their families present, thought this a delightful 
opportunity of indulging their wit respecting the 
"soldiering." Accordingly, they formed two 
bands, one on each side of the gallery, and, 
from the commencement of the play to the end, 
kept up a cross-dialogue of impertinence, about 
" charging guns with brown sugar and cocoa- 
nuts," and "small arms with cinnamon powder 
and nutmegs." 

Miss Mellon was in agony for the object of 
her theatrical devotion. She cried, she ran 
about behind the wings as if she were going out 
of her senses. Mrs. Siddons, however, calm 
though deadly pale, merely said to her, with a 
slight tremor in her voice, "I will go through 
the time requisite for the scenes, but will not 
utter them." 

She went on the stage ; said aloud, " It is 
useless to act," crossed her arms, and merely 
murmured the speeches ; and it is a fact that, 
on the first night one of Mrs. Siddons' master- 
pieces was acted in Liverpool, she went through 
the entire performance in dumb show. 

In December 1785 her second son, George, 
was born. As soon as she was able to write, 



1782 TO 1798. 201 

she communicated the fact to her friends, the 
Whalleys, in one of her lively, light-hearted let- 
ters : — 

" I have another son, healthy and lovely as an 
angel, born the 26th December ; so you see, I 
take the earliest opportunity of relieving the 
anxiety which I know you and my dear Mrs. 
Whalley will feel till you hear of me. My sweet 
boy is so like a person of the Royal Family, that 
I'm rather afraid he'll bring me to disgrace. My 
sister jokingly tells me she's sure 'my lady his 
mother has played false with the prince,' and I 
must own he's more like him than anybody else. 
I will just hint to you that my father was at one 
time very like the King, which a little saves my 
credit. I rejoice that you are well, and have 
such pleasant society, but I wish to God you 
would return ! I have no news for you, except 
that the prince is going to devote himself en- 
tirely to a Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the whole world 
is in an uproar about it. I know very little of 
her history more than that it is agreed on all 
hands that she is a very ambitious and clever 
woman, and that ' all good seeming by her revolt 
will be thought put on for villany,' for she was 
thought an example of propriety. I hear, too, 
that the Duchess of Devonshire is to take her 
by the hand, and to give her the first dinner 



202 MRS. SIDDONS. 

when the preliminaries are settled ; for it seems 
everything goes on with the utmost formality — 
provision made for children, and so on. Some 
people rejoice and some mourn at this event. I 
have not heard what his mother says to it. The 
Royal Family have been nearly all ill, but are 
now recovering, and they graciously intend to 
command me to play in " The Way to Keep 
Him " the first night 1 perform. They are gra- 
cious to me beyond measure on all occasions, 
and take all opportunities to show the world that 
they are so. How good and considerate is this ! 
They know what a sanction their countenance 
is, and they are amiable beyond description. 
Since my confinement I have received the kind- 
est messages from them : they make me of conse- 
quence enough to desire I won't think of playing 
till I feel quite strong, and a thousand more 
kind things. I perceive a little shooting in my 
temples that tells me I have written enough. 

" I don't take leave of you, however, without 
telling you that I am very much disappointed 
in Sherriffe's picture of me, and am afraid to 
employ him about your snuff-box. I don't know 
what to do about it, for that promised to be so 
well that I almost engaged him in the fulness of 
my heart to do it. I have not been in face these 
last four months; but now that I am growing as 



I782 TO 1798. 203 

amiable as ever, I shall sit for it as soon as pos- 
sible. God Almighty bless you both ! 

"Yours, S. Siddons." 

Later she writes again to Whalley : — 

" I have at last, my friend, attained the ten 
thousand pounds which I set my heart upon, and 
am now perfectly at ease with respect to fortune. 
I thank God who has enabled me to procure to 
myself so comfortable an income. I am sure my 
dear Mrs. Whalley and you will be pleased to 
hear this from myself. What a thing a balloon 
would be ! but, the deuce take them, I do not 
find that they are likely to be brought to any 
good. Good heaven ! what delight it would be to 
see you for a few days only ! I have a nice house, 
and I could contrive to make up a bed. I know 
you and my dear Mrs. Whalley would accept my 
sincere endeavors to accommodate you ; but don't 
let me be taken by surprise, my dear friend, for 
were I to see you first at the theatre, I can't 
answer for what might be the consequence. 

" I stand some knocks with tolerable firmness, 
I suppose from habit ; but those of joy being so 
infinitely less frequent, I conceive must be more 
difficultly sustained. 

"You will find I have been a niggard of my 
praise, when you see your Fanny. Oh ! my 



204 MRS - SID DONS. 

beloved friend, you could not speak to one who 
understands those anxieties you mention better 
than I do. Surely it is needless to say no one 
more ardently prays that God Almighty, in His 
mercy, will avert the calamity ; and surely, surely 
there is everything to hope for from such dispo- 
sitions, improved by such an education. My 
family is well, God be praised ! My two sisters 
are married and happy. Mrs. Twiss will pre- 
sent us with a new relation towards February. 
At Christmas I bring my dear girls from Miss 
Eames, or rather she brings them to me. Eliza 
is the most entertaining creature in the world ; 
Sally is vastly clever ; Maria and George are 
beautiful ; and Harry, a boy with very good 
parts, but not disposed to learning." 

In spite of her statement that once she had 
made ten thousand pounds she would rest con- 
tented, we find her for the two next years work- 
ing without intermission, going from York to 
Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Liverpool. In 
1788 Kemble succeeded King as manager of 
Drury Lane, and his sister returned to assist, 
first of all in his spectacular revival of " Mac- 
beth," in which, among other innovations, he 
brought in the black, grey, and white spirits, as 
bands of little boys. One of these imps was 



1782 TO 1798. 205 

insubordinate, and was sent away in disgrace ; 
his name was " Edmund Kean." 

They then acted " Henry VIII." together, 
Kemble contenting himself with "doubling" the 
characters of Cromwell and Griffith, Bensley 
having already possession of the part of Wolsey. 
The representation was a success in every way, 
and Mrs. Siddons' Queen Katherine was hence- 
forth ranked as equal to her Lady Macbeth. 

On the 7th February following she played for 
the first time Volumnia to her brother's Corio- 
lanus. An eye-witness tells us : — 

" I remember her coming down the stage in 
the triumphal entry of her son Coriolanus, when 
her dumb show drew plaudits that shook the 
building. She came alone, marching and beat- 
ing time to the music ; rolling (if that be not too 
strong a term to describe her motion) from side 
to side, swelling with the triumph of her son. 
Such was the intoxication of joy which flashed 
from her eye, and lit up her whole face, that the 
effect was irresistible. She seemed to me to 
reap all the glory of that procession to herself. 
I could not take my eye from her. Coriolanus, 
banner, and pageant, all went for nothing to me, 
after she had walked to her place." 

Many are the testimonies of actors and ac- 
tresses that show her extraordinary personal 



206 MRS. SIDDONS. 

power. Young relates that he was once acting 
Beverley with her at Edinburgh. They had 
reached the fifth act, when Beverley had swal- 
lowed the poison, and Bates comes in, and says 
to the dying man, " Jarvis found you quarreling 
with Jewson in the streets last night." Mrs. 
Beverley says, " No, I am sure he did not ! " to 
which Jarvis replies, " Or if I did ?" meaning, it 
may be supposed, to add, "The fault was not 
with my master." But the moment he utters 
the words " Or if I did ? " Mrs. Beverley ex- 
claims, " 'Tis false, old man ! They had no 
quarrel — there was no cause for quarrel ! " In 
uttering this, Mrs. Siddons caught hold of Jar- 
vis, and gave the exclamation with such pierc- 
ing grief, that Young said his throat swelled and 
his utterance was choked. He stood unable to 
repeat the words which, as Beverley, he ought 
to have immediately delivered. The prompter 
repeated the speech several times, till Mrs. Sid- 
dons, coming up to her fellow-actor, put the tips 
of her fingers on his shoulders, and said in a low 
voice, " Mr. Young, recollect yourself." 

Macready relates an equally remarkable in- 
stance of her power. In the last act of Rowe's 
" Tamerlane," when, by the order of the tyrant 
Moneses, Aspasia's lover is strangled before her 
face, she worked herself up to such a pitch of 



1782 TO 1798. 207 

agony that, as she sank a lifeless heap before 
the murderer, the audience remained for several 
moments awe-struck, then clamored for the cur- 
tain to fall, believing that she was really dead ; 
and only the earnest assurances of the manager 
to the contrary could satisfy them. Holman and 
the elder Macready were among the spectators, 
and looked aghast at one another. " Macready, 
do I look as pale as you ? " inquired the former. 

On another occasion, when performing " Hen- 
ry VIII." with a raw "supernumerary" who 
was playing Surveyor, when she warned him 
against giving false testimony against his mas- 
ter, her look was so terrific that the unfortunate 
youth came off perspiring with terror, and 
swearing that nothing would induce him to meet 
that woman's eyes again. 

Had Mrs. Siddons lived in our day, every 
shop-window would have been crowded with 
photographs of her classically beautiful face, in 
every pose and every costume. Mercifully she 
lived in the days of Gainsborough and Reynolds, 
and is, therefore, the original of two of the most 
beautiful female portraits ever painted. Sir 
Joshua is said to have borrowed his conception 
from a figure designed by Michael Angelo on 
the roof of the Sistine Chapel. She is seated in 
a chair of state, with two figures behind holding 



208 MRS. SIDDONS. 

the dagger and the bowl. The head is thrown 
back in an attitude of dramatic inspiration, the 
right hand thrown over an arm of the seat, the 
left raised, pointing upwards. A tiara, neck- 
lace, and splendid folds of drapery enhance the 
stateliness of the composition. It is, undoubt- 
edly, the great painter's masterpiece. "The 
picture," Northcote says, " kept him in a fever." 
The unfavorable reception his pictures of the 
year before had met with made him resolved to 
show the critics that he was not past his prime, 
while the grandeur and magnificence of the sitter 
stimulated him to the exertion of all his genius. 

Mrs. Siddons was fond, in later years, of de- 
scribing her sittings. " Ascend your undisputed 
throne," said the painter, leading her to the plat- 
form. " Bestow on me some idea of the tragic 
muse." And then, when it was ended, the great 
painter insisted on inscribing his name on her 
robe, saying that he could not lose the honor of 
going down to posterity on the hem of her gar- 
ment. We, who only know of her greatness 
from hearsay, can form some idea of what she 
must have been from this magnificent concep- 
tion. 

Very nearly as noble and beautiful is the por- 
trait by Gainsborough. The delicacy of a re- 
fined English complexion has never been so 



1782 TO 1798. 209 

beautifully painted, while the tone and color is 
as exquisite as anything Gainsborough ever did. 
The light transparent blue, cool yellow, crimson, 
brown, and black, forms an enchanting setting 
for the lovely head which stands out clear and 
delicate. It is said, that while Gainsborough 
was painting her, after working in an absorbed 
silence for some time, he suddenly exclaimed, 
" Damn it, Madam, there is no end to your 
nose ! " And, indeed, it does stand out a little 
sharply. But the great feature of the Kembles 
was the jaw-bone. The actress herself ex- 
claimed, laughing, "The Kemble jaw-bone! 
Why, it is as notorious as Samson's ! " Mrs. 
Jameson declares that she saw Mrs. Siddons sit- 
ting near Gainsborough's portrait two years be- 
fore her death, and, looking from one to the 
other, she says, " It was like her still, at the age 
of seventy." 

Years after, Fanny Kemble, her grand-daugh- 
ter, while walking through the streets of Balti- 
more, saw an engraving of Reynold's " Tragic 
Muse " and Lawrence's picture of John Kem- 
ble's "Hamlet." "We stopped," she says, 
" before them, and my father looked with a great 
deal of emotion at these beautiful representa- 
tions of his beautiful kindred. It was a sort of 
14 



210 MRS. SIDDONS. 

sad surprise to meet them in this other world, 
where we are wandering aliens and strangers." 

From the numerous portraits extant of Mrs. 
Siddons we can form an idea of her appearance, 
of which such legendary accounts have been 
handed down. She was much above middle 
height ; as a girl she was exceedingly thin and 
spare, and this remained her characteristic until 
she was about twenty-two or three. " Sarah 
Kemble would be a fTne-looking woman one of 
these days," a friend of her father remarked, 
" provided she could but add flesh to her bones, 
and provided her eyes were as small again." 

This is, in fact, what did occur. Her increas- 
ing plumpness rounded off all angles, making 
the eyes less prominent ; and at the age of 
twenty-four or twenty-five she was in the very 
prime of her marvellous beauty. She had a sin- 
gular energy and elasticity of motion. Her head 
was beautifully set on her shoulders. Her fea- 
tures were fine and expressive, the nose a little 
long, but counterbalanced by the height of the 
brow, and firmly-modelled chin. The eyebrows 
were marked, and ran straight across the brow ; 
her eyes positively flamed at times. A fixed 
pallor overspread her features in later days, 
which was seldom tinged with color. It is diffi- 
cult, looking at the stately fine lady painted by 



1782 TO I798. . 211 

Gainsborough, to imagine the bursts of passion 
that convulsed her on the stage. Her voice, as 
years matured its power, was capable of every 
inflection of feeling ; while her articulation 
was singularly clear and exact. There was no 
undue raising of the voice, no overdoing of ac- 
tion ; all was moderate and quiet until passion 
was demanded, and then swift and sudden it 
burst forth. 

In Kemble's manner at times there was a sac- 
rifice of energy to grace. This observation, 
Braden tells us, was made by Mrs. Siddons her- 
self, who admired her brother, in general, as 
much as she loved him. She illustrated her 
meaning by rising and placing herself in the 
attitude of one of the old Egyptian statues ; the 
knees joined together, and the feet turned a lit- 
tle inwards. Placing her elbows close to her 
sides, she folded her hands, and held them up- 
right, with the palms pressed to each other. 
Having made those present observe that she had 
assumed one of the most constrained, and, there- 
fore, most ungraceful positions possible, she 
proceeded to recite the curse of King Lear on 
his undutiful offspring, in a manner which made 
hair rise and flesh creep, and then called on us 
to remark the additional effect which was gained 



212 MRS. SID DONS. 

by the concentrated energy which the unusual 
and ungraceful posture in itself implied. 

It is a characteristic trait, that by the Kemble 
family John should have been considered a finer 
player than Sarah. We know that he continually 
gave her directions and instructions, which she 
accepted with all humility, and followed, until 
she had made herself sure of her ground. No 
one, however gifted, could then shake her con- 
scientious adherence to her own views. 

The subtle difference that lies between genius 
and talent separated the two. Kemble repeated 
beautiful words suitably ; Mrs. Siddons was 
magnificent before she spoke, thrilling her audi- 
ence with a silence more significant than all else 
in the development of human emotion. We can 
see how grand she was, independently of her 
author, by the miserable plays she made fa- 
mous ; when her genius was no longer present 
to breathe life and passion into them they passed 
into oblivion. 

The number of indifferent plays she was en- 
treated to appear in were legion. All her friends 
seemed to think they could write plays, and that 
she was the one and only person who could 
appear in them. We find her piteously writing 
to a friend who had sent her a tragedy : — 

" It is impossible for you to conceive how hard 



1782 to 1798. 213 

it is to say that " Astarte " will not do as you 
and I would have it do. Thank God, it is over! 
It has been so bitter a sentence for me to pro- 
nounce, that it has wrung drops of sorrow from 
the very bottom of my heart. Let me entreat, 
if you have any idea that I am too tenacious of 
your honor, that you will suffer me to ask the 
opinion of others, which may be done without 
naming the author. I must, however, premise 
that what is charming in the closet often ceases 
to be so when it comes into consideration for the 
stage." 

Conceited Fanny Burney must needs write a 
tragedy, "Edwin and Elgitha." Her stumbling- 
block was " Bishops." At that time there was 
a popular drink called " Bishop," composed of 
certain intoxicating ingredients. When, there- 
fore, in one of the earlier scenes the King gave 
the order " Bring in the Bishop," the audience 
went into roars of laughter. The dying scene 
seemed to have no effect in damping their mirth. 
A passing stranger, in a tragic tone, proposed to 
carry the expiring heroine to the other side of a 
hedge. This hedge, though remote from any 
dwelling, proved to be a commodious retreat, 
for, in a few minutes afterwards, the wounded 
lady was brought from behind it on an elegant 
couch, and, after dying in the presence of her 



214 MRS - SJD&ONS. 

husband, was removed once more to the back of 
the hedge. The effect proved too ridiculous for 
the audience, and Mrs. Siddons was carried off 
amidst renewed roars of laughter. 

Dr. Whalley must then needs press a tragedy 
of his own upon her, " The Castle of Mowal," 
which was yawned at for three nights. It is 
said that when the author went down to Mr. 
Peake, the treasurer, to know what benefit might 
have accrued to him, it amounted to nothing. 
11 1 have been," said the doctor, an old picquet- 
player, " piqued and re-piqued ; " and so he re- 
tired from the scene of his discomfiture to Bath, 
where he plumed himself on the fact of having 
" run for three nights." 

Her next essay in the cause of friendship 
was in Bertie Greatheed's tragedy of " The Re- 
gent." She writes in reference to it : — 

" The plot of the poor young man's piece, it 
strikes me, is very lame, and the characters 
very — very ill-sustained in general ; but mqre 
particularly the lady, for whom the author had 
me in his eye. This woman is one of those 
monsters (I think them) of perfection, who is an 
angel before her time, and is so entirely resigned 
to the will of Heaven, that (to a very mortal like 
myself) she appears to be the most provoking 
piece of still life one ever had the misfortune to 



1782 TO 1798. 215 

meet. Her struggles and conflicts are so weakly 
expressed, that we conclude they do not cost 
her much pain, and she is so pious that we are 
satisfied she looks upon her afflictions as so 
many convoys to Heaven, and wish her there, or 
anywhere else but in the tragedy. I have said 
all this, and ten times more, to them both, with 
as much delicacy as I am mistress of ; but Mr. 
G. says that it would give him no great trouble 
to alter it, provided I will undertake the milksop 
lady. I am in a very distressed situation, for, 
unless he makes her a totally different charac- 
ter, I cannot possibly have anything to do with 
her." 

The piece was eventually performed for twelve 
nights, and then consigned to oblivion ; but the 
author was so satisfied that he gave a supper, 
which was followed by a drinking-bout at the 
" Brown Bear " in Bow Street, at which a subor- 
dinate actor named Phillimore was sufficiently 
tipsy to have courage enough to fight his lord 
and master, John Kemble, who was elevated 
enough to defend himself, and generous enough 
to forget the affair next morning. 

Other parts were declined by her for other 
reasons. Coleman had written an epilogue to 
Mr. Jephson's "Julia," which she refused to 
speak because she declared it to be " coarse ; " 



2l6 MRS. SID DONS. 

and the part of Cleopatra, she said she never 
would act, because " she would hate herself if 
she were to play it as she thought it should be 
played." And there she was right ; the " Ser- 
pent of Old Nile" was not within her range. 

One of her admirers tells us that her majestic 
and imposing person, and the commanding char- 
acter of her beauty, militated against the effect 
she produced in the part of Mrs. Haller. " No 
man alive or dead," said he, " would have dared 
to take a liberty with her ; wicked she might be, 
but weak she could not be, and when she told 
the story of her ill-conduct in the play nobody 
believed her." Another eye-witness, speaking 
of " the fair penitent," said that it was worth sit- 
ting out the piece for her scene with Romont 
alone, to see "such a splendid animal in such a 
magnificent rage." 

And yet, what a kind heart it was to an erring 
sister ! " Charming and beautiful Mrs. Robin- 
son," she writes, referring to Perdita Robinson, 
" I pity her from the bottom of my soul." And 
what a generous helping hand she stretched out 
to her younger colleagues. When Miss Mellon, 
twenty years her junior, was acting with her at 
Liverpool, Mrs. Siddons one morning at re- 
hearsal turned to an actor, a friends of hers, who 
had known her for years, and said : 



1782 TO 1798. 217 

"There is a young woman here whom I am 
sure I have seen at Drury Lane." 

He told her it was Miss Mellon, who had just 
come out. 

" She seems a nice, pretty young woman," re- 
turned the great actress, "and I pity her situa- 
tion in that hot-bed of iniquity, Drury Lane ; it 
is almost impossible for a young, pretty, and un- 
protected female to escape. How has she con- 
ducted herself ? " 

The person she addressed, who relates the 
story, replied : 

" With the greatest propriety." 

"Then please present her to me." 

The young lady, coloring highly and looking 
very handsome, came forward. The Queen of 
Tragedy took her by the hand, and, after a few 
kind encouraging words, led her forward among 
the company and said : 

" Ladies and Gentlemen, I am told by one I 
know very well that this young lady has always 
conducted herself with the utmost propriety. I, 
therefore, introduce her as my young friend." 

This electrified the parties in the green-room, 
who had not looked for such a flattering distinc- 
tion for the young actress ; but, of course, they 
were all too glad to follow Mrs. Siddons in any- 
thing, and Miss Mellon was overwhelmed with 



218 MRS. SIDDONS. 

attention. Afterwards, on the return of Mrs. 
Siddons and Miss Mellon to their duties in Lon- 
don for the succeeding season, the former re- 
peated the compliment she had paid her at 
Liverpool, making the same statement regarding 
her excellent conduct ; and by thus bringing 
her forward under such advantageous circum- 
stances, procured her admission to the first 
green-room, where her inferior salary did not 
entitle her to be, except on such a recommenda- 
tion as that of Mrs. Siddons. 

In the summer of 1790, being in delicate 
health, and disgusted at Sheridan's treatment of 
her, she went with her husband to France, ac- 
companied by Miss Wynn. They first stopped 
at Calais, where their daughters, Sarah and 
Maria, were at a boarding-school, and then went 
on to Lisle. The letter she wrote to Lady Har- 
court on her return is so characteristic in its 
energetic, outspoken sincerity, that it seems 
unjust not to quote every word of it : — 

" Sandgate, near Folks tone, Kent, 

August 2nd. 

" My Dear Lady Harcourt : — After so long 

a silence, your good nature will exalt itself to 

hear a long letter full of egotism, and I will 

begin with Streatham, where you may remem- 



1782 TO 1798. 219 

ber to have heard me talk of going with no great 
degree of pleasurable expectation, supposing it 
impossible that I should ever feel much more 
for Mrs. P.* than admiration of her talents ; but, 
after having very unexpectedly stayed there 
more than three weeks, during which time every 
moment gave me fresh instances of unremitting 
kindness and attention to me, and, indeed, a 
very extraordinary degree of benevolence and 
forbearance towards those who have not de- 
served much lenity at her hands (and it is won- 
derful how many there are of that description), 
I left them with great regret ; and between their 
very great kindness, their wit, and their music, 
they made me love, esteem, and admire them 
very much. In a few days I set out with Mr. 
S., Miss Wynn, and her brother, for Calais, and 
after a very rough passage, arrived at Calais, 
and found my dear girls quite well and improved 
in their persons and (I am told) in their French. 
I was very much struck with the difference of 
objects and customs when I reflected how small 
a space divides one nation from the other, like 
true English. We saw all we could, and I 
thought of my dear Lord Harcourt, though not 
with him, in their churches. I own (though I 

*Mrs. Piozzi, who, after Mr. Thrale's death, had married 
again, much to the disgust of the Johnsonian band. 



220 MRS. SID DONS. 

blame myself at the same time for it) I was dis- 
gusted with all the pomp and magnificence of 
them, when I saw the priests 'playing such fan- 
tastic tricks before high Heaven as (I think) 
must make the angels weep;' and the people 
gabbling over their prayers, even in the act of 
gaping, to have it over as quick as might be. 
Alas ! said I to myself, in the pitifulness, and 
perhaps vanity, of my heart, how sorry I am for 
these poor deluded people, and how much more 
worthy the Deity (' who does prefer before all 
temples the upright heart and pure ') are the 
sublime and simple forms of our religion. In- 
deed, my dear Madam, I am better satisfied with 
the ideas and feelings that have been excited in 
my heart in your garden at Nuneham, than ever 
I have been in those fine gewgaw places, and 
believe Mr. Haggitt, by his plain and sensible 
sermons, has done more good than a legion of 
these priests would do if they were to live to the 
age of Methusalem. I am willing to own that 
all this may be prejudice, and that We may not 
mean better than our neighbors \ but fire shall 
not burn my opinion out of me, and so God 
mend all. Now, to turn to our great selves. We 
took our little folks to Lisle ; it is a very fine 
town, and, though I know nothing of the lan- 
guage, the acting was so really good that it gave 



1782 TO 1798. 221 

me very great pleasure. The language of true 
genius, like that of Nature, is intelligible to all. 
We stayed there a few days, and you would have 
laughed to have seen my amazement at the valet 
of the inn assisting the femme de chambre in the 
making of our beds. The beds are the best I 
ever slept upon ; but the valet's kind offices I 
could always, I think, dispense with, good heav- 
ens ! Well, we returned to Calais, where I 
would have stayed a few months, and have em- 
ployed myself in acquiring a few French phrases 
with the dear children, if Mrs. Temple would 
have taken me in; but she said she had not 
room to accommodate me, and I unwillingly 
gave up the point. In a day or two we set sail, 
after seeing the civic oath administered on the 
fourteenth. It was a fine thing even at Calais. 
I was extremely delighted and affected, not, in- 
deed, at the sensible objects, though a great mul- 
titude is often a grand thing, but the idea of so 
many millions throughout that great nation, 
with one consent, at one moment (as it were by 
Divine Inspiration), breaking their bonds asun- 
der, filled one with sympathetic exultation, good 
will and tenderness. I rejoiced with them from 
my heart, and most sincerely hope they will not 
abuse the glorious freedom they have obtained. 
We were nearly twenty hours on the sea on our 



222 MRS. SID DONS. 

return, and arrived at Dover fatigued and sick 
to death. Dr. Wynn was obliged to make the 
best of his way to London on account of a ser- 
mon he was engaged to preach, and took his 
charming sister with him. We made haste here, 
and it is the most agreeable sea-place, excepting 
those on the Devonshire coast, I ever saw. Per- 
haps agreeable is a bad word, for the country is 
much more sublime than beautiful. We have 
tremendous cliffs overhanging and frowning on 
the foaming sea, which is very often so saucy 
and tempestuous as to deserve frowning on ; 
from whence, when the weather is clear, we see 
the land of France, and the vessels cross from 
the Downs to Calais. Sometimes, while you 
stand there, it is amazing with what velocity 
they skim along. Here are little neat lodgings, 
and good wholesome provisions. Perhaps they 
would not suit a great countess, as our friend 
Mr. Mason has it, but a little great actress is 
more easily accommodated. I'm afraid it will 
grow larger, though, and then adieu to the com- 
forts of retirement. At present the place cannot 
contain above twenty or thirty strangers, I 
should think. I have bathed four times, and 
believe I shall persevere, for Sir Lucas Pepys 
says my disease is entirely nervous. I believe 
I am better, but I get on so slowly that I cannot 



I782 TO I/98. 223 

speak as yet with much certainty. I still suffer 
a good deal. Mr. Siddons leaves me here for a 
fortnight while he goes to town upon business, 
and my spirits are so bad that I live in terror of 
being left alone so long. We have been here 
nearly three weeks, and I propose staying here, 
if possible, till September, when I shall go to 
town to my brother's for some days, and then 
set off for Mr. Whalley's at Bath. I shall hope 
to see you at Nuneham, though, before you 
leave it. 

" Now, my dear Lady Harcourt, let me con- 
gratulate you upon having almost got to the end 
of this interesting epistle and myself, in the 
honor of your friendship, which has flattered me 
into the comfort of believing that you will not 
be tired of your prosing, but always very affec- 
tionate and faithful servant, S. Siddons. 

"Pray offer my love, and our united compli- 
ments to all." 

Michael Kelly gives an account of the land- 
lady's opinion of " La grande actrice Anglaise" 
at the hotel at St. Omer, where he stopped 
shortly after Mrs. Siddons had been there. She 
considered her handsome, declared she was try- 
ing to imitate French women, but fell very far 
short of them. 



224 MRS. SIDDONS. 

She was induced to return to Drury Lane 
about the end of 1790, and in April we find 
Horace Walpole writing to tell Miss Berry that 
he had supped with Kemble and Mrs. Siddons 
" t'other night at Miss Farren's, at the bow-win- 
dow house in Green Street, Grosvenor Square." 
He pronounces the actress to be "leaner." We 
can see the party : cynical, sneering Walpole ; 
beautiful Miss Farren, afterwards Countess of 
Derby, the hostess; Mrs. Siddons, "august" 
and matronly ; and solemn John, who had just 
made a hit as Othello. 

It was the last year of old Drury's existence, 
and, for her brother's sake, she bore her part 
bravely, acting when called upon ; but she soon 
flagged, and could only act a few nights. Her 
re-appearance was welcomed with wild enthusi- 
asm ; she seemed as popular as ever. One night 
over four hundred pounds was paid by the pub- 
lic to see her in Mrs. Beverley. 

About 1792 or 1793 she seems to have taken 
a house at Nuneham, near the Harcourts — the 
Rectory, we presume, for we find her writing to 
Lord Harcourt, devising little comforts for their 
summer residence at Nuneham, thanking him 
for his "neighborly " attention ; and one or two 
letters she writes to John Taylor are dated Nune- 
ham Rectory. One is on the subject of a Life 



1782 TO 1798. 225 

of herself which he wished to undertake ; the 
other refers to her modelling, and an accident 
which happened to her husband and children. 

" I am in no danger of being too much occu- 
pied by my 'favorite clay,' for it is not arriv'd 
— how provoking and vexatious ! particularly as 
I am dying to attempt a Bust of my sweet little 
George, and his Holidays will be over, I fear, 
before I am able to finish it. Apropos to George, 
the dear little Soul has escapd being danger- 
ously hurt, if not kill'd (my blood runs cold at 
the thought), by almost a miracle. Mr. Siddons 
and Maria have not been so fortunate, they are 
both cripples at present with each a wounded 
Leg, but I hope they are in a fair way to get bet- 
ter. The accident (so these things are called, but 
not by me ; I know you'll deride my Superstition, 
but this kind of Superstition has not unfre- 
quently afforded me great aid and consolation, 
and I hate to discard an old friend because she 
happens to be a little out of Fashion, so Laugh 
on, I don't care) happen'd from their being forcd 
to jump out of a little Market Cart which Mr. 
Siddons had orderd to indulge the children in a 
drive. Thank God I did not see it and that 
they have escapd so well ! ! ! This is the Sweet- 
est Situation in England, I believe. I wish you 
would come and see it. If I had a Bed to offer 
15 



226 MkS. SID DONS. 

you I should be more pressing, but I could get 
you one at the Inn in the Village if you should 
be disposd to go to those fine doings at Oxford, 
where all the world will be, except such Stupid 
Souls as myself. Mr. Combe is at Lord Har- 
court's ; I understand he is writing a History of 
the Thames, and his Lordships House is the 
present Seat of his observations. I have not the 
pleasure to know him, but am to Dine with him 

at Lord H 's to-morrow. [This is the Combe 

of Wolverhampton memory, whom Mrs. Kemble 
had refused as instructor for her daughter. The 
stately " I have not the pleasure to know him " 
is so like Mrs. Siddons.] Give my kind love to 
Betsey when you See her, and I earnestly entreat 
you (if it be not too much vanity to Suppose you 
w d wish to preserve them a moment beyond 
reading them) that you will burn all my Letters ; 
tell me Seriously you will do so ! for there is 
nothing I dread like having all one's nonsense 
appear in. print by some untoward accident — not 
accident neither, but wicked or interested design, 
pray do me thefaV to ask at our House why my 
precious Clay has not been Sent, and tell me 
Something about it when you write again. 
Adieu." 






CHAPTER XL 

SHERIDAN. 

The apparition of Sheridan, meteor-like, in 
the laborious, active, well-regulated lives of Mrs. 
Siddons and her brother, and the history of his 
professional intercourse with them, is one of the 
greatest proofs of the extraordinary glamour exer- 
cised by the specious Irishman on all who came 
under his personal influence. After Garrick's 
retirement from the management of Drury Lane, 
the overwhelming success of the " School for 
Scandal," and the engagement of Mrs. Siddons, 
staved off financial difficulties for a time ; but no 
amount of receipts were sufficient to withstand 
Sheridan's reckless private expenditure and un- 
businesslike habits. The brilliant Brinsley did 
not recognise that other qualities besides the 
power to write a good play, or make a great 
speech, were necessary for the management of 
such a concern as Garrick's Drury Lane. The 
truth, however, was borne home to him by the 
utter chaos that ultimately ensued : actors un- 
paid, and the treasury repeatedly emptied by the 

(227) 



228 MRS. SID DONS. 

proprietor himself before the money had been 
diverted into its legitimate channels. Yet the 
receipts at the doors amounted to nearly sixty 
thousand pounds a year. Things would have 
gone better could he have been persuaded en- 
tirely to abstain from management, but he per- 
sistently interfered with his subordinates. When 
a dramatist was employed in reading his trag- 
edy to the performers, Brinsley would saunter 
in, yawning, at the fifth act, with no other apol- 
ogy than having sat up late two nights running, 
he was unable to appear in time ; or he would 
arrive drunk, go into the green-room, ask the 
name of a well-known actor who was on the 
stage, and bid them never to allow him to play 
again. He was once told, with some spirit, by 
one of the company, that he rarely came there, 
and then never but to find fault. 

Things grew worse and worse. It was pite- 
ous to hear the complaints of the actors and 
staff of the theatre, who found it impossible to 
obtain payment of their weekly salaries. The 
shifts and devices which he employed to escape 
from their importunity was a constant subject 
of jest. 

At last he was obliged to let the reins of man- 
agement fall from his incapable hands. They 
were taken up by King; but he in turn soon 



SHERIDAN. 



229 



found the position intolerable, and the stern and 
business-like Kemble was called in to restore 
discipline among unruly players whose salaries 
were overdue, and amongst upholsterers and dec- 
orators who had never been paid for the pieces 
they had mounted. 

It required the courage and determination of 
a Kemble to undertake the clearing out of such 
an Augean stable. " The public approbation of 
my humble endeavors in the discharge of my 
duties will be the constant object of my ambi- 
tion," he said, in his modest declaration on the 
acceptance of the appointment ; " and as far as 
diligence and assiduity are claims to merit, I 
trust I shall not be found deficient." Nor was 
he found deficient. Bringing extraordinary de- 
termination to the task, he soon got the theatre 
into order, with an efficient working company, of 
which he and his sister, Mrs. Siddons, were the 
ruling spirits. 

Sheridan had not even the good sense in this 
critical juncture in his affairs to propitiate the 
great actress on whom the fortunes of the house 
rested. There is something comic, indeed, in 
his relations with the Tragedy Queen. They 
rather remind us of an incorrigible schoolboy 
continually offending those in authority, and yet 
confident in their affection and his own powers 



230 MRS. SID DONS. 

of persuasion to obtain indulgence and forgive- 
ness. 

Once Mrs. Siddons had declared that she 
would not act until her salary was paid, she re- 
sisted inflexibly the earnest appeals of her col- 
leagues and the commands of the manager, and 
was quietly sewing at home after the curtain had 
risen for the piece in which she was expected to 
perform. Sheridan appeared, like the magician 
in a pantomime, courteous, irresistible; she yield- 
ed helplessly, " and suffered herself to be driven 
to the theatre like a lamb." 

One night, Mr. Rogers tells us, having heard 
the story from her own lips, when she was about 
to drive away from the theatre, Mr. Sheridan 
jumped into the carriage. "Mr. Sheridan," said 
the dignified Muse of Tragedy, "/ trust that 
you will behave with propriety ; if not, I shall 
have to call the footman to show you out of the 
carriage." She owned that he did behave him- 
self. But as soon as the carriage stopped, he 
leaped out, and hurried away, as though wishing 
not to be seen with her. " Provoking wretch ! " 
she said, with an indulgent smile, which even 
she, encased in all her panoply of prudish deco- 
rum, could not suppress. 

At last even her patience was worn out, and 
dt the close of her brother's first year of manage- 



SHERIDAN. 231 

ment she retired from the theatre. Sheridan 
dared to boast they could do without her. A 
scheme was then hatching in the ever-fertile 
Irish brain of the proprietor that was destined to 
revolutionize the dramatic world of London. 
He discovered that the taste of the day, and the 
requirements of his own pocket, demanded a 
larger ^nd more luxurious building than Old 
Drury ; the walls that had re-echoed to the grand 
tones of Betterton, the musical love-making of 
Barry, and the passionate declamation of Gar- 
rick, was to be pulled down to satisfy the greed 
and the ambition of Sheridan. Immediate pro- 
posals for debentures amounting to ,£160,000 
were issued, and, wonderful to relate, taken up 
in a very short time. But, alas ! to cover the 
interest of this enormous sum, it was determined 
to build a house nearly double the size. Nei- 
ther Mrs. Siddons nor her brother seems to have 
considered the disastrous consequence this would 
exercise on their art. The perfect acoustics and 
compact stage of the old house were to be swept 
away to give place to an immense dome-shaped 
space, and an expanse requiring undignified en- 
ergy of motion to traverse. The immediate con- 
sequence was evident ; recourse had to be taken 
to stage artifice to manage the entrance and the 
exit, while gesture had to be more violent, ex- 



232 MRS. SID DONS. 

pression more exaggerated, and voice unduly 
raised to produce an effect. 

In Garrick's Drury, also, the front row of 
boxes was open like a gallery, and everyone who 
occupied them was obliged to appear in full 
dress. The row of boxes above these again 
were given up to the bourgeoisie, while the lat- 
tices at the top were the portion destined to 
those whose reputation was doubtful, and who 
by their unseemly behavior might disturb the 
decorum of the audience. Garrick was master 
of his art, and knew how to value the criticism 
and sympathy of the crowd. Under his man- 
agement the two-shilling gallery was brought 
down to a level with the second row of boxes. 
By that arrangement a player had the mass of 
the audience under his immediate control ; and 
that mass, uninfluenced by fashion or prejudice, 
unerring in its judgment, is the dread of an infe- 
rior actor, the delight of a great one. 

While the theatre was still in process of erec- 
tion, the company performed at the Opera House 
in the Haymarket, or, as it was called, the King's 
Theatre. The new house was opened on April 
2ist, 1794, with "Macbeth." 

11 1 am told," Mrs. Siddons writes to Lady 
Harcourt, " that the banquet is a thing to go and 
see of itself. The scenes and dresses all new, 



SHERIDAN. 233 

and as superb and characteristic as it is possible 
to make them. You cannot conceive what I 
feel at the prospect of playing there. I dare say 
I shall be so nervous as scarcely to be able to 
make myself heard in the first scene." 

This banqueting scene in " Macbeth " was 
made the subject of sarcastic hints in the daily 
press on the old score of her avarice : — 

"The soul of Mrs. Siddons (Mrs. Siddons 
whose dinners and suppers are proverbially nu- 
merous) expanded on this occasion. She speaks 
her joy on seeing so many guests, with an earn- 
estness little short of rapture. Her address 
appeared so like reality, that all her hearers 
about her seized the wooden fowls " . . . , 

The great actress soon felt a great mistake 
had been made. " I am glad to see you at 
Drury Lane," she said to a colleague, " but you 
are come to act in a wilderness of a place, and, 
God knows, if I had not made my reputation in 
a small theatre, I never should have done it." 

It was indeed "a wilderness of a place." The 
mere opening for the curtain was forty-three 
feet wide, and thirty-eight feet high, or nearly 
seven times the height of the peformers. Miss 
Mellon laughingly said she " felt a mere shrimp " 
when acting in it. The result might be foreseen. 
Had not the great actress indeed made her rep- 



234 MRS - SPOONS. 

utation on a small theatre, never would she have 
made it here. We, who only know of Mrs. Sid- 
dons by immediate tradition, are inclined to think 
that she ranted, and destroyed her effects by 
exaggeration of gesture and expression. There 
is little doubt we are justified in so thinking, and 
that the increased size of the theatre and audience 
were to blame. 

What a world of significance lies also in her 
words : " The banquet is a thing to go and see 
of itself." A new era had begun; the stage 
and everything belonging to it, ought to be 
taken out of the domain of everyday life, and, by 
appealing to the intellectual comprehension of 
the audience, raise them to an understanding of 
the grandeur of conception and passion of a 
Shakespeare. Garrick acted Othello in a cocked 
hat and scarlet uniform, and yet impressed his 
audience with a pathetic and intense reality. 
Mrs. Siddons acted Lady Macbeth in black vel- 
vet and point lace, and yet imparted a majesty 
and grace to the impersonation never before 
seen on the English stage. Now we see the 
Mephistopheles, Sheridan, inducing her to bar- 
ter away her reputation and ideal of great art 
for the substantial benefits of increased gains 
and larger audiences. 

A different class of entertainment now invaded 



SHERIDAN. 235 

the classic boards. We can see " Timour the 
Tartar," "Tekeli, or the Siege of Montgatz," 
" The Miller and His Men," " Pizarro," and a 
host of spectacular pieces, mounted to draw 
numerous and uncritical audiences. This first 
season was a fatiguing and anxious one for the 
great actress, more especially also that she was 
in delicate health. Her daughter Cecilia was 
born this year, 1794, on 25th July. Her hus- 
band wrote to a friend : — 

I have the pleasure to tell you your little god-daughter (for 
such she is, myself being your proxy a few days back) is very 
well, and as fine a girl as if her father was not more than one- 
and-twenty. She is named after Mrs. Piozzi's youngest daugh- 
ter, Cecilia ; her sponsors are yourself and Mr. Greatheed, Mrs. 
Piozzi and Lady Percival (ci devant Miss B. Wynn) ; and, what 
is better, the mother is well, too, and is just going to the thea- 
tre to perform Mrs. Beverley for the benefit of her brother's 
wife, Mrs. Stephen Kemble. 

She never all through life gave herself the rest 
requisite to re-establish her health ; always be- 
fore the public, what wonder that languor and 
weakness attacked her physically, and despond- 
ency and dissatisfaction mentally. 

" My whole family are gone to Margate," she 
wrote in September, " whither I am going also, 
and nothing could make it tolerable to me, but 
that my husband and daughters are delighted 
with the prospect before them. I wish they 



236 MRS. SID DONS. 

could go and enjoy themselves there, and leave 
me the comfort and pleasure of remaining in my 
own convenient house, and taking care of my 
baby. But I am every day more and more convin- 
ced that half the world live for themselves, and 
the other half for the comfort of the former. At 
least this I am sure of, that I have had no will of 
my own since I remember; and indeed, to be 
just, I fancy I should have little delight in such 
an existence." 

She told her friend Mr. Whalley, on the eve 
of setting out for Edinburgh to play at her son 
Henry's theatre : — " I intend, if it please God, 
to be at home again for Passion week. I leave 
my sweet girl behind me, not daring to take her 
so far north this inclement season, and could well 
wish that the interests of the best of sons, and 
most amiable of men, did not so imperiously 
call me out of this softer climate just now. But 
I shall pack myself up as warmly as I can, trust- 
ing that while I run a little risk, I shall do a 
great deal of good to my dear Harry, who tells 
me all my friends are more eager to see me than 
ever. It is not impossible that I may stop a 
night or two here before I go, which, as I have 
long been engaged to act this season after Eas- 
ter, and cannot in honor or honesty be off, I 
think will not be impolitic, lest my enemies, if 



SHERIDAN-. 237 

their malignity be worth a thought, may think 
their impotent attempts have frightened me 
away. They have done all their malignant 
treachery could devise, and have they robbed 
me of one friend ? No, God be praised ! But, 
on the contrary, have knit them all closer to me. 
Glad enough should I be never to appear again, 
but, while the interests of those so dear and near 
as those of son and brother are concerned, one 
must not let selfish consideration stand in the 
way of Christian duties and natural affection." 

The public are inclined to think that the life 
of an artist spent continually before the foot- 
lights is one eminently conducive to hardening 
the sensibilities against calumny ; but it is a 
curious fact that actors are like children in their 
craving for applause and praise, and in their fear 
of criticism and blame. Garrick wrote a year 
before his death to the scoundrel who persecuted 
him, " Will Curtius take the word of the accused 
for his innocence?" and Mrs. Siddons, through 
her husband, offered one thousand pounds for 
the libeller to whom she refers in the following 
letter: — 

" One would think I had already furnished 
conjectures and lies sufficient for public gossip ; 
but now the people here begin again with me. 
They say that I am mad, and that that is the 



238 MRS. SID DONS. 

reason of my confinement I should laugh at 
this rumor were it not for the sake of my chil- 
dren, to whom it may not be very advantageous 
to be supposed to inherit so dreadful a malady ; 
and this consideration, I am almost ashamed to 
own, has made me seriously unhappy. However, 
I really believe I am in my sober senses, and 
most heartily do I now wish myself with you at 
dear Streatham, where I could, as usual, forget 
all the pains and torments of illness and the 
world. But I fear I have now no chance for 
such happiness." 

" Kotzebue and German sausages are the or- 
der of the day," Sheridan said when he brought 
out the English adaptation of "The Stranger." 
Mrs. Haller, in Mrs. Siddons' hands, became 
pathetic, almost grand ; but to us nowadays, un- 
influenced by the glamour of her presence, the 
sickly sentiment and impossible situations of the 
play make it an untempting meal for our practi- 
cal and realistic mental digestions. 

Its success was so great as to induce the au- 
thor of the " School for Scandal " — who had lost 
all power of original conception, yet was obliged 
to fill his pockets — to adapt another play, " Pi- 
zarro," also by Kotzebue. Did we not know the 
history of the celebrated first night of his play, 
on unimpeachable evidence, we should be in- 



SHERIDAN. 239 

clined to look upon it as one of those exagger- 
ated tales that, related by one of the many 
gossips of the time, had grown out of all possi- 
bility of credence. Sheridan was up-stairs in 
the prompter's room, stimulating his jaded brain 
by sips of port, and writing out the last act of 
the play, while the earlier parts were acting ; 
every ten minutes he brought down as much of 
the dialogue as he had done piece-meal into the 
green-room, abusing himself and his negligence, 
and making a thousand winning and soothing 
apologies for having kept the performers so long 
in such painful suspense. What, under these 
circumstances, became of the thorough and elab- 
orate study declared by the Kembles to be nec- 
essary for the perfection of the dramatic art, we 
know not. Rolla and Mrs. Siddons' Elvira must 
have been extemporaneous acting. Perhaps the 
performances gained in vivid power and effect 
what they lost in finish from the nervous strain 
and excitement of such a mental effort as they 
were called upon to make. It is difficult to 
account for the success of the play unless the 
acting was superlatively good. It is overlaid 
with bombast and claptrap, and, as Pitt said, 
was but a second-rate re-echo of his speeches on 
the Hastings trial. For no one but the " hapless 
genius " would the brother and sister have thus 



24O MRS. SIDDONS. 

thrown to the winds all their artistic traditions. 
We hear of the inflexible John saying, when irri- 
tated past bearing : " I know him thoroughly, 
all his paltry tricks and artifices ;" yet immedi- 
ately after we find both him and the great actress 
submitting to all his whims and eccentricities. 
There is an amusing story told by Boaden of a 
supper at beautiful Mrs. Crouch's, when Kemble 
arrived charged with his grievances, and full of 
threats, expecting to meet Sheridan. Presently 
in came the culprit, light and airy as usual. The 
great actor looked unutterable things, occasion- 
ally emitting a humming sound like that of a 
bee, and groaning inwardly in spirit. Some lit- 
tle time elapsed, when at last, like a " pillar of 
state," slowly uprose Kemble, and thus addressed 
the proprietor : 

" I am an eagle whose wings have been bound 
down by frosts and snows, but now I shake my 
pinions and cleave into the genial air into which 
I am born." 

After having thus offered his resignation, he 
solemnly resumed his seat. Sheridan, however, 
undaunted, used all his arts of fascination to 
mitigate his wrath, and at an early hour of the 
morning both went away in perfect harmony. 

Then we have Mrs. Siddons' opinion of him : — 

" Here I am," she writes, " sitting close in a 



SHERIDAN. 241 

little dark room in a little wretched inn, in a lit- 
tle poking village called Newport Pagnell. I 
am on my way to Manchester, where I am to act 
for a fortnight, from whence I am to be whirled 
to Liverpool, there to do the same. From thence 
I skim away to York and Leeds; and then, when 
Drury Lane opens — who can tell ? For it de- 
pends upon Mr. Sheridan, who is uncertainty 
personified. I have got no money from him yet, 
and all my last benefit, a very great one, was 
swept into his treasury, nor have I seen a shil- 
ling of it. Mr. Siddons has made an appoint- 
ment to meet him to-day at Hammersley's. As 
I came away very early, I don't know the result 
of the conference ; but unless things are settled 
to Mr. Siddons' satisfaction, he is determined to 
put the affair into his lawyer's hands." 

The affair was never put into any lawyer's 
hands ; she allowed herself to be mollified, and 
might well write of Sheridan in 1796 : — 

" Sheridan is certainly the greatest phenome- 
non that nature has produced for centuries. Our 
theatre is going on, to the astonishment of 
everybody. Very few of the actors are paid, fl 
and all are vowing to withdraw themselves ; yet 
still we go on. Sheridan is certainly omnipo- 
tent. I can get no money from the theatre ; my 
precious two thousand pounds are swallowed up 
16 



242 MRS. SID DONS. 

in that drowning gulf, from which no plea of 
right or justice can save its victims." 

John Kemble remained manager of Drury 
Lane for some years, sometimes withdrawing 
for a time and refusing to manage the affairs 
any longer, and again wheedled back by Sheri- 
dan's powers of persuasion. At last, wearied 
out, both brother and sister finally withdrew 
from Drury Lane in 1802, and took shares with 
Harris in Covent Garden Theatre. Harris was 
the direct opposite of Sheridan, punctual in his 
payments and honorable in his dealings. Mrs. 
Inchbald arranged all the monetary portion of 
the affair. The concern was valued at .£138,000, 
of which Harris represented one half ; the re- 
mainder being divided among four proprietors, 
of whom Lewis, the actor, was one. Lewis after 
a time became anxious to dispose of his share, 
and Kemble purchased it for the sum of £23,000 ; 
a friend of his, a Mr. Heathcote, advancing him 
a large amount to enable him to do so. The 
Kemble family all joined him in this venture. 
The company included Mrs. Siddons, Charles 
Kemble, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Siddons, and 
Cooke, the well-known actor. As soon as Kem- 
ble had completed his arrangements, he went 
abroad for some months, visiting Spain and 
France. On his return a dinner was given by 



SHERIDAN. 243 

the managers of Covent Garden to their Drury 
Lane rival, Sheridan, who made a sarcastic 
speech on the friendship of fellows who had 
hated each other all their lives. John Kemble 
then went abroad again, for a time, to recruit his 
strength after the anxiety and worry of his years 
of management. 

Mrs. Kemble, in a letter written to her hus- 
band during bis absence, describes a very smart 
party at the " Abercorn," at which the Prince of 
Wales, and the Devonshire, Melbourne, Castle- 
reagh, and Westmoreland families were present, 
and says significantly at the end : " Mrs. Sheri- 
dan came in a very elegant chariot, four beauti- 
ful black horses and two footmen. The Duchess 
had only one. Mrs. Sheridan had a fine shawl 
on, that he, Sheridan, said he gave forty-five 
guineas for, a diamond necklace, ear-rings, cross, 
cestus, and clasps to her shoulders, and a double 
row of fine pearls round her neck." This was 
shortly after Mrs. Siddons' last benefit, when 
the brilliant Brinsley had swept the proceeds 
into his own pocket. 

The very "ravages of fire," however, which 
they " scouted " by the help of " ample reser- 
voirs " that were exhibited on the stage the night 
of the inauguration, by a " lake of real water,' 
and a " cascade tumbling down," were the rav- 



244 MRS - SID DONS. 

ages that were destined to destroy the splendors 
of the new building. The misfortune of fire 
that ruined Kemble was destined, also, to ruin 
Sheridan, who had staked his all on this one 
enterprise. Drury Lane was destroyed as Co- 
vent Garden was rising from its ashes. The 
glare of the burning building lit up the Houses 
of Parliament during a late sitting. One of the 
members suggested an adjournment of the 
House. With a spice of the highly-flavored 
bombast he had lately so frequently offered his 
theatrical audiences, Sheridan opposed the idea : 
— "Whatever may be the extent of the calamity 
to me personally, I hope it will not interfere 
with the public business of the country," he 
said ; and quitting the assembly, he betook him- 
self to one of the coffee-houses in Covent Gar- 
den, where he was found swallowing port by the 
tumblerful a few hours later. One of the actors 
expressed his surprise and disgust at seeing 
him there. " Surely a man may be allowed to 
take a glass of wine by his own fireside? " was 
Sheridan's ready answer. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HERMIONE. 

It sends a pang though our heart as we hear 
Mrs. Siddons say in later life, with a sigh, to 
Rogers the poet : " After I became famous, none 
of my sisters loved me so well." What a price 
to pay for fame ! " Conversation " Sharp was fre- 
quently consulted by her upon private affairs. 
She wept to him over the ingratitude her sisters 
showed her. Money was lent and never repaid ; 
the prestige of her name was borrowed to ob- 
tain theatrical engagements, but she never was 
thanked ; every obligation seemed only to cause 
a feeling of bitterness. Perhaps the fault lay a 
little on her side as well as on theirs. Tact and 
graciousness were not her strong points. She 
was absent-minded, all her attention being con- 
centrated on the study and comprehension of 
her profession, which gave her a proud, self-con- 
tained manner, alienating unconsciously those 
who surrounded her and were dependent on her. 
Her children adored her, but her brothers and 
sisters stood, to a certain extent, in awe of her. 

(245) 



246 MRS. SID DONS. 

All of them, stimulated by the examples of the 
two eldest, went on the stage, but none possessed 
her genius, or John Kemble's talent and indus- 
try. The affectionate comradeship in art that 
existed between Mrs. Siddons and John Kem- 
ble is one of the pleasantest features in both 
their lives. 

He was educated, as we have seen, principally 
at the Roman Catholic College at Douay, where 
he became remarkable for his elocution, every 
now and then astonishing his masters and 
schoolfellows by delivering speeches in scholas- 
tic Latin, and learning with the greatest facility 
books of Homer and odes of Horace. We are 
told that his noble cast of countenance, his deep 
melodious voice, and the dignity of his delivery, 
impressed his comrades considerably ; especially 
in the scene between Brutus and Cassius, which 
he got up for their benefit. It is a curious proof 
of his want of facility that, although he was ex- 
tremely fond of the study of language, grammar 
being all his life his favorite light reading, he 
never was able to master any language but his 
own. He read Italian, Spanish, and French, 
but spoke none of them, in spite of his education 
in France and his long residence later at Lau- 
sanne. He had no ear, and it never could have 
been an easy task to him to learn the rhythm of 



HERMOINE. 247 

Shakespeare. We know the story of old Shaw, 
conductor of the Covent Garden orchestra, who 
vainly endeavored to teach him the song in the 
piece of "Richard Cceur de Lion," " O Richard 
— Omonroi!" "Mr. Kemble, Mr. Kemble, 
you are murdering the time, SirT" cried the 
exasperated musician ; on which Kemble made 
one of the few jokes ever perpetrated by him : 
"Very well, Sir, and you are for ever beating it." 
After six years' residence at Douay he made 
up his mind that he was not suited to the church, 
and left for England, determined to follow his 
father's profession. He landed at Bristol in 
that very December, 1775, that his sister made 
her unfortunate " first appearance " before the 
London public. Dreading his parents' wrath, 
he made his way to Wolverhampton, and there 
joined a company under the direction of a Mr. 
Crump and a Mr. Chamberlain. After going 
through all the humiliations and privations of a 
penniless actor, but also after enjoying the val- 
uable hours of study and stern discipline of a 
stroller's life, we find the future Hamlet, by the 
aid of his sister, Mrs. Siddons, enabled to get 
his foot on the first round of the ladder. Mr. 
Younger, manager of the Liverpool theatre, gave 
him an engagement in 1778. We find him after- 
wards playing at Wakefield with Tate Wilkin- 



248 MRS. SIDDONS. 

son's York company, and actually permitted to 
act Macbeth at Hull. By the aid of quiet indus- 
try and determination he was working his way 
to the goal he had in view. He perpetrated a 
tragedy, " Belisarius," that was given on the 
same occasion at Hull, wrote poetry which he 
burned, gave lectures on oratory, and, in fact, 
passed through the curriculum necessary to the 
full completion of his powers. 

On the 30th September 1783, John Kemble 
first appeared in London, at Drury Lane, as 
Hamlet. The fiery criticisms launched against 
this performance by the press, show that at least 
it was distinguished by originality. Whatever 
its faults might be, they were unanimous in de- 
claring his reading to be scholarly and refined. 
He is said, in studying the part of Hamlet, to 
have written it out no less than forty times. 
Some time elapsed before he appeared in the 
same piece as his sister ; other actors had pos- 
session of the parts, and he had to bide his 
time. That patient waiting on opportunity, 
however, was one of the great Kemble gifts ; 
there was no impatience, no complaining, but a 
steady, dogged power of perseverance, with the 
profound conviction of their own capabilities to 
make use of fortune when it came. At last he 
appeared as Stukeley to his sister's Mrs. Bever- 



HERMIONE. 249 

ley, in "The Gamester." Finely as the part 
was played, the sister, not the brother, carried 
away the honors of the performance. 

After this, on several benefit nights they were 
able to appear together, Kemble replacing Smith 
in the character of Macbeth to Mrs. Siddons' 
Lady Macbeth, and both of them acting later in 
"Othello," he as the Moor, she as Desdemona. 
This was not a distinct success. At last, how- 
ever, his power found its legitimate development. 
On the occasion of his sister's benefit in January 
1788, he acted Lear to her Cordelia. The town 
was electrified, and declared him equal to Gar- 
rick. Boaden tells us " that he never played it 
so grandly or so touchingly as on that night." 

His really great gift was his large and cultiva- 
ted understanding, that enabled him to grasp 
the spirit of the author he sought to interpret, 
giving a new emphasis and truth to scenes that 
were hackneyed and stale by a conventional 
method of rendering. This was particularly the 
case with Shakespeare, whose beauties he and 
his sister first revealed to their generation. The 
difference, however, between them was that he 
possessed superlative talent, she possessed gen- 
ius. In speaking to Reynolds the dramatist, she 
defined completely the difference between them, 
" My brother John, in his most impetuous bursts, 



250 MRS. SID DONS. 

is always careful to avoid any discomposure of 
his dress or deportment, but in the whirlwind of 
passion I lose all thoughts of such matters." 

He is said to have nourished a tender affec- 
tion for the " Muse "—beautiful, clever, fasci- 
nating, stuttering Mrs. Inchbald. When her 
husband died, it was universally said he would 
marry her. Fanny Kemble tells an incident 
that occurred long after Kemble was married. 
Mrs. Inchbald and Miss Mellon were sitting by 
the fire-place in the green-room, waiting to be 
called upon the stage. The two were laughingly 
discussing their male friends and acquaintances 
from the matrimonial point of view. John Kem- 
ble, who was standing near, at length jestingly 
said to Mrs. Inchbald, who had been comically 
energetic in her declarations of whom she could 
or would or never could or would have married, 
"Well, Mrs. Inchbald, would you have had 
me ? " " Dear heart," said the stammering 
beauty, turning her sweet sunny face up to him, 
"I'd have j-j-j-jumped at you!" 

The lady he did eventually marry was no 
beauty and no " Muse," but, much to the indig- 
nation of Mrs. Siddons, as people said at the 
time, a very ordinary young woman, daughter of 
a Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins, prompter and actress 
at Drury Lane. PrisciHa, however, made him a 



HERMIONE. 25 1 

good wife, and he never had cause to regret his 
choice. 

The next brother to John, Stephen, although 
almost born on the stage, had none of the re- 
quisites either of talent or facility to make him a 
good actor. Only a few days before John's first 
appearance in London, Stephen appeared before 
the public as Othello. It was said that the man- 
ager had made a mistake, and had engaged the 
" big " instead of the " great " Mr. Kemble. 
Stephen's great boast all his life was that he 
was the only actor who could play Falstaff 
"without stuffing." His qualifications were 
those of a boon companion rather than of an 
actor. He very soon quitted the London stage 
and became manager of a provincial theatre. 

Frances, the great actress's second sister, in- 
herited a considerable portion of the family 
beauty, but little dramatic power, and what she 
had was rendered inoperative by her unconquer- 
able shyness. Mrs. Siddons first brought her 
out at Bath. The papers vented their spleen 
against the elder sister on the younger. It was 
natural, they said, that she should wish to bring 
her forward, but they hoped she had learned, by 
the utter failure of her attempt, not to " cram 
incapable actresses down the throats of the pub- 
lic." One of the theatrical critics, Steevens, 



252 MRS. SID DONS. 

fell in love with her ; but his proposals being 
rejected, he became her bitterest enemy. 

Mrs. Siddons writes to tell Dr. Whalley of 
this love affair : — " My sister Frances is not 
married, and, I believe, there is very little rea- 
son to suppose she will be soon. In point of 
circumstances, I believe, the gentleman you 
mention would be a desirable husband ; but I 
hear so much of his ill-temper, and know so 
much of his caprice, that, though my sister, I 
believe, likes him, I cannot wish her gentle spirit 
linked with his." 

Mrs. Sidclons had judged her sister's suitor 
exactly. The engagement was soon broken off, 
and the girl married Mr. Twiss, another dra- 
matic critic, whom Fanny Kemble, in her " Rec- 
ords of a Girlhood," describes as a grim-visaged, 
gaunt-figured, kind-hearted gentleman and pro- 
found scholar, who, it was said, at one time nour- 
ished a hopeless passion for Mrs. Siddons. The 
Twisses later set up a genteel seminary at Bath, 
where fashionable young ladies were sent " to 
be bettered." Mrs. Twiss died in October 1822, 
and Mr. Twiss in 1827. Mrs. Siddons ever kept 
up the most affectionate intercourse with them, 
and their son Horace Twiss was her favorite 
nephew. 

Her next sister, Elizabeth, though apprenticed 






HER MI ONE. 253 

to a mantua-maker, was soon bitten with the 
dramatic enthusiasm of the family. She ob- 
tained an engagement through the influence of 
her famous sister, but made no way in London ; 
and after her marriage with Mr. Whitelock, one 
of the managers of the Chester company, in 
1785, she went with him to America, where she 
seems to have had some success. 

Mrs. Whitelock, we are told, was a taller and 
fairer woman than Mrs. Siddons. When she 
returned to England years later, she wore an 
auburn wig, which, like the tall cap that sur- 
mounted it, was always on one side. She was a 
simple-hearted, sweet-tempered woman, but very 
imperfectly educated. Her Kemble name, face, 
figure, and voice helped her in the United States, 
but her own qualifications were but meagre. 
Nothing could be droller, we are told, than to 
see her with Mrs. Siddons, of whom she looked 
like a clumsy, badly -finished imitation. Her 
vehement gestures and violent objurgations con- 
trasted comically with her sister's majestic still- 
ness of manner ; and when occasionally Mrs. 
Siddons would interrupt her with " Elizabeth, 
your wig is one side," and the other replied, 
" Oh, is it ? " and, giving the offending head- 
gear a shove, put it quite as crooked in the other 
direction, and proceeded with her discourse, 



254 MRS - SIDDONS. 

Melpomene herself used to have recourse to her 
snuff-box to hide the dawning smile on her face. 
Another sister, Jane, appeared in Lady Ran- 
dolph at Newcastle when she was nineteen. She 
had all the Kemble faults in acting carried to 
excess. She was, besides, short and fat ; and 
when a character in the play, describing her 
death, said, " She ran, she flew, like lightning up 
the hill," the audience roared with laughter. 
Shortly after this discouraging attempt she mar- 
ried a Mr. Mason, of Edinburgh, and retired 
from the profession. She died in 1834, leaving 
a husband, five sons, and a daughter, who almost 
all went on the stage. With one unfortunate 
exception, the Kemble family were remarkable 
for their decorous, well-regulated lives. Al- 
though all the brothers married actresses, their 
children were admirably brought up, and their 
households models of propriety. The unfortu- 
nate exception we mentioned was Ann Curtis, 
the fourth sister. To a woman of Mrs. Siddons' 
proud, sensitive temper, the vagaries of this 
wretched woman must have been painful beyond 
expression. She was said to be lame, which 
prevented her going on the stage. In 1783, the 
year of her great triumph in London, the young 
actress had the pleasure of reading in all the pa- 
pers the following advertisement. Under the 



HERMIONE. 255 

guise of charity it is easy to see the motive that 
prompted it and shows the envy and malignity 
that pursued her during her career. 

DONATIONS IN FAVOR OF MRS. CURTIS, YOUNGEST SISTER OF 
MRS. SIDDONS. 

A private individual, whose humanity is far more extensive 
than her means, having taken the case of the unfortunate Mrs. 
Curtis into consideration, pitying her youth, respecting her tal- 
ent for the stage, which, unhappily, misfortune has rendered 
useless, and desirous to restore a useful member to society, 
earnestly entreats the interference of a generous public in her 
behalf, that she may be enabled by the efforts of humanity to 
procure such necessaries as may be requisite to relieve her im- 
mediate distress, and for her getting her bread by needlework, 
artificial flowers, &c, in which she is well skilled, and in which 
she will be happy to be well employed. Mrs. Curtis is the 
youngest sister of Messrs. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, whom 
she has repeatedly solicited for relief, which they have flatly 
refused her ; it therefore becomes necessary to solicit, in her 
behalf, the benevolent generosity of that public who have so 
liberally supported them. 

Deny not to Affliction Pity's tear, 

For Virtue 's fairest when she aids Distress ! 

— Mrs. Curtis's " Search After Happiness." 

Donations will be thankfully received at Mr. Ayre's, Printer 
of the Sunday "London Gazette " and "Weekly Monitor," &c. 
No. 5 Bridges Street, opposite Drury Lane Theatre; and at 
No. 21 King Street, Covent Garden. 

All efforts to reclaim her being unavailing, 
she gradually descended lower and lower in the 
social scale. Rumors were circulated of her 
having attempted to poison herself, and again 



256 MRS. SID DONS. 

her brother and sister were accused of undue 
harshness ; but almost everything connected 
with the case points to their having done all they 
could, though she proved perfectly irreclaimable. 

During the latter part of her life she was al- 
lowed a small annuity of twenty pounds a year, 
which was continued to her in Mrs. Siddons' 
will. She lived until 1838. 

Charles, who approached more nearly in in- 
tellectual powers to his celebrated sister and 
brother than any of the others, was nearly twenty 
years younger than Mrs. Siddons. When thir- 
teen years of age, he was sent by John Kemble 
to Douay College, where he remained three 
years. He appeared at Drury Lane in 1794. 
He was a gentlemanly, refined actor ; there 
were certain characters which he made entirely 
his own. Charles married, in 1806, an actress 
of the name of De Camp. Like Mrs. Garrick, 
she had been a ballet-dancer, and had come over 
from Vienna, brought by Garrick with the rest 
of the troupe. In consequence of a riot directed 
against the employment of foreigners, the greater 
part of the troupe was obliged to return to 
Vienna. Miss De Camp, however, remained, 
learned English, and, by dint of perseverance, 
achieved a good position at Drury Lane. They 
had three children — Adelaide, who sang profes- 



HER MI ONE. 257 

sionally, but soon left the stage to marry Mr. 
Sartoris ; Fanny, authoress of the " Record of a 
Girlhood, who became Mrs. Butler ; and a son, 
John Mitchell Kemble. Charles Kemble suf- 
fered much from deafness during the latter years 
of his life, and was entirely ruined by his gift of 
the share in Covent Garden valued at ,£50,000. 
Mrs. Siddons reappeared for his benefit on the 
9th of June, 1 8 19. 

Mrs. Siddons had five children who lived to 
grow up — Henry, who was born at Wolver- 
hampton on the 4th October, 1774; Sarah Mar- 
tha, born at Gloucester, November 5th, 1775 ; 
Maria, born at Bath, July 1st, 1779; George, 
born in London, December 27th, 1785 ; and Ce- 
cilia, born July 25th, 1794. She sent her son 
Henry to France to study under Le Kain. He 
went on the stage, but had none of the qualifica- 
tions of a good actor. 

Mrs. Siddons, with her usual sensible accep- 
tance of things as they were, tried to make the 
best of his powers. On the occasion of his first 
appearance, she writes to Mrs. Inchbald from 
Bannister's where she was stopping with her 
friend Mrs. Fitzhugh : — 

" I received your kind letter, and thank you 
very much for the interest you have taken in my 
dear Harry's success. It gives me great pleas- 
17 



258 MRS. SID DONS. 

ure to find that Mr. Harris appreciates his tal- 
ents, which I think highly of, and which, I be- 
lieve, will grow to great perfection by fostering, 
on the one hand, and care and industry on the 
other. I have little doubt of Mr. Harris's lib- 
erality, and none of the laudable ambition of my 
son to obtain it. It is so long since I have felt 
anything like joy, that it appears like a dream to 
me, and I believe I shall not be able quite to 
convince myself that this is real till I am present 
■ to attend the triumph and partake the gale.' 
I am all anxiety and impatience to hear the effect 
of Hamlet. It is a tremendous undertaking for 
so young a creature, and where so perfect a 
model has been so long contemplated. I was 
frightened when I yesterday received informa- 
tion of it. Oh ! I hope to God he will get well 
through it. Adieu, dear Muse." 

Henry Siddons soon quitted the stage, mar- 
ried a Miss Murray, daughter of an actor, and 
herself an actress, and in 1808 became manager 
of the Edinburgh theatre. 

The death of her daughter Maria was the first 
serious grief Mrs. Siddons had known. We 
have touched on Lawrence the painter's propo- 
sals to her, and the transference of his affection, 
after a short engagement, to her sister Sarah. 
Mrs. Siddons did everything she could to soften 



HERMIONE. 259 

the blow to the poor deserted girl. We find her 
writing in desperation to her old friend Tate 
Wilkinson : — 

" My plans for the summer are so arranged 
that I have no chance of the pleasure of seeing 
you. The illness of my second daughter has 
deranged all schemes of pleasure as well as 
profit. I thank God she is better ; but the na- 
ture of her constitution is such that it will be 
long ere we can reasonably banish the fear of an 
approaching consumption. It is dreadful to see 
an innocent, lovely young creature daily sinking 
under the languor of illness, which may termi- 
nate in death at iast, in spite of the most vigi» 
lant tenderness. A parent's misery under this 
distress you can more easily imagine than I can 
describe ; but if you are the man I take you for, 
you will not refuse me a favor. It would, indeed, 
be a great comfort to us all, if you would allow 
our dear Patty to come to us on our return to 
town in the autumn, to stay with us a few 
months. I am sure it would do my poor Maria 
so much good, for the physician tells me she will 
require the same confinement and the same care 
the next winter; and let it not offend the pride 
of my good friend when I beg it to be under- 
stood that I wish to defray the expense of her 
journey. Do, dear soul, grant my request. Give 



260 MRS. SID DONS. 

my kind compliments to your family, my love to 
my own dear Patty, and accept yourself the best 
and most cordial wishes of S. Siddons." 

From this time until Mrs. Siddons' death, 
Patty Wilkinson never left her house, and re- 
mained ever the intimate and beloved friend of 
her and her daughters. 

Maria was taken to Clifton at the doctor's 
suggestion, while Mrs. Siddons went a provin- 
cial tour to make money enough to meet the 
heavy demands upon her purse. At last even 
the poor mother saw all efforts were unavailing, 
and when, on the 6th October, 1798, the blow at 
last came, she met it with resignation and cour- 
age. To Mrs. Fitzhugh she wrote : — 

"Although my mind is not yet sufficiently 
tranquillized to talk much, yet the conviction of 
your undeviating affection impels me to quiet 
your anxiety so far as to tell you that I am toler- 
ably well. This sad event I have been long pre- 
pared for, and bow with humble resignation to 
the decree of that merciful God who has taken 
to Himself the dear angel I must ever tenderly 
lament. I dare not trust myself further. Oh ! 
that you were here, that I might talk to you of 
her death-bed — in dignity of mind and pious res- 
ignation far surpassing the imagination of Rous- 



HERMIONE. 26l 

seau and Richardson in their Heloise and Cla- 
rissa Harlowe ; for hers was, I believe, from the 
immediate inspiration of the Divinity." 

Troubles now began to fall thick and heavy. 
Mr. Siddons, actuated by a morbid jealousy of 
his wife's energy and success, entered into a con- 
nection with Sadler's Wells Theatre without 
consulting her, or even taking her into his confi- 
dence. A considerable amount of her savings 
were sacrificed to save him from his ill-advised 
venture. In spite of ill-health and lassitude, 
however, we find her unmurmuringly taking up 
her burden to make good the loss. On the 14th 
of July, 1 801, she writes again to Mrs. Fitz- 
hugh : — 

" In about a fortnight I expect to commence 
my journey to Bath. Mr. Siddons is there, for 
he finds no relief from his rheumatism else- 
where. His accounts of himself are less favora- 
ble than those of anyone who writes to me about 
him ; but I hope and trust that we shall find him 
better than he himself thinks ; for I know by 
sad experience with what difficulty a mind, weak- 
ened by long and uninterrupted suffering, admits 
hope, much less assurance. I shall be here till 
next Saturday, and after that time at Lancaster 
till Tuesday, the 28th ; thence I shall go immedi- 
ately to Bath, where I shall have about a month's 



262 MRS. SID DONS. 

quiet, and then begin to play at Bristol for a few 
nights. ' Such resting finds the sole of unblest 
feet ! ' When we shall come to London is uncer- 
tain, for nothing is settled by Mr. Sheridan, and 
I think it not impossible that my winter may be 
spent in Dublin ; for I must go on making to 
secure the few comforts that I have been able to 
attain for myself and my family. It is providen- 
tial for us all that I can do so much ; but I hope 
it is not wrong to say that I am tired, and should 
be glad to be at rest indeed. I hope yet to see 
the day when I can be quiet. My mouth is not 
yet well [she had had an attack of erysipelas, the 
disease that was ultimately to kill her,] though 
somewhat less exquisitely painful. I have be- 
come a frightful object with it for some time, 
and, I believe, this complaint has robbed me of 
those poor remains of beauty once admired — at 
least, which, in your partial eyes, I once pos- 
sessed." 

She did not go to Dublin, but returned early 
in the following year to Drury Lane, where she 
performed above forty times. 

On the 25 th March 1802 she performed for 
the first time Hermione in the "Winter's Tale." 
The enacting of this part is to be counted 
amongst her great successes. It was more suit- 
able to her age and appearance than others that 



HERMIONE. 263 

she undertook in later life. On the second or 
third night she had a narrow escape of being 
burned to death. We can give the incident as 
related in a letter to Mrs. Fitzhugh : — 

"London, April 1802. 
"... Except for a day or two, the weather 
has been very favorable to me hitherto. I trust 
it may continue so, for the " Winter's Tale " 
promises to be very attractive ; and, whilst it 
continues so, I am bound in honor and con- 
science to put my shoulder to the wheel, for it 
has been attended with great expense to the 
managers, and, if I can keep warm, I trust I 
shall continue tolerably well. As to my plans, 
they are, as usual, all uncertain, and I am pre- 
cisely in the situation of poor Lady Percy, to 
whom Hotspur comically says : ' I trust thou 
wilt not utter what thou dost not know.' This 
must continue to be the case, in a great measure, 
whilst I continue to be the servant of the public, 
for whom (and let it not be thought vain) I can 
never sufficiently exert myself. I really think 
they receive me every night with greater and 
greater testimonies of approbation. I know it 
will give you pleasure to hear this, my dear 
friend, and you will not suspect me of deceiving 
myself in this particular. The other night had 



264 MRS. SIDDONS. 

very nearly terminated all my exertion, for whilst 
I was standing for the statue in the " Winter's 
Tale," my drapery flew over the lamps that were 
placed behind the pedestal. It caught fire, and 
had it not been for one of the scene-men, who 
most humanely crept on his knees and extin- 
guished it without my knowing anything of the 
matter, I might have been burnt to death, or, at 
all events, I should have been frightened out of 
my senses. Surrounded as I was with muslin, 
the flame would have run like wildfire. The 
bottom of the train was entirely burned. But 
for the man's promptitude, it would seem as if 
my fate would have been inevitable. I have 
well rewarded the good man, and I regard my 
deliverance as a most gracious interposition of 
Providence. There is a special providence in 
the fall of a sparrow. Here I am safe and well, 
God be praised ! and may His goodness make 
me profit, as I ought, by the time that is vouch- 
safed me." 

We later find her making every exertion to 
rescue the son of the man who had saved her, 
from punishment for desertion. 

" I have written myself almost blind for the 
last three days, worrying everybody to get a poor 
young man, who otherwise bears a most excel- 



HERMIONE. 26$ 

lent character, saved from the disgrace and hid- 
eous torture of the lash, to which he has exposed 
himself. I hope to God I shall succeed. He is 
the son of the man — by me ever to be blest — 
who preserved me from being burned to death 
in the " Winter's Tale." The business has cost 
me a great deal of time, but if I attain my pur- 
pose I shall be richly paid. It is twelve o'clock 
at night ; I am tired very much. To-morrow is 
my last appearance. In a few days I shall go to 
see my dear girl, Cecelia. How I long to see 
the darling ! Oh ! how you would have enjoyed 
my entree in Constance last night. I was re- 
ceived really as if it had been my first appear- 
ance in the season. I have gone to breakfasts 
and dinners for this unfortunate young man, till 
I am quite worn out with them. You know how 
pleasure, as it is called, fatigues." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Though still suffering from enfeebled health, 
Mrs. Siddons again made up her mind to visit 
Dublin in the spring of 1802. A strange de- 
pression, partly the result of physical weakness, 
and partly the result of mental anxiety, came 
over her courageous spirit, paralyzing all energy, 
and breaking down her usual calm composure. 
We find this woman, who to the outside public 
presented a cold and hard exterior, weeping hys- 
terically on taking leave of her friends. She 
told Mr. Greatheed she felt that before they met 
again a great affliction would have fallen on 
them both. They never did meet till after the 
death of his son Bertie and her daughter Sarah. 
To Mrs. Piozzi she wrote : — 

"May, 1802. 

" Farewell, my beloved friend — a long, long 
farewell ! Oh, such a day as this has been ! To 
leave all that is dear to me. I have been sur- 
rounded by my family, and my eyes have dwelt 
with a foreboding tenderness, too painful, on the 
(266) 



SORROWS. 267 

venerable face of my dear father, that tells me I 
shall look on it no more. I commit my children 
to your friendly protection, with a full and per- 
fect reliance on the goodness you have always 
manifested towards me. 

" Your ever faithful and affectionate 

" S. Siddons." 

The mother's heart could have hardly had a 
foreboding of the second affliction about to fall 
on her then. A few weeks after she had taken 
her departure from Marlborough street, Sally de- 
scribes to Patty Wilkinson, who had accompa- 
nied Mrs. Siddons, picnics and parties she and 
her friend Dorothy Place had attended, much to 
their amusement and delight. The girl gives an 
account also of her brother Henry's marriage 
with Miss Murray, who, she says, " looked very 
beautiful in a white chip hat, with a lace cap 
under it, her long dark pelisse tied together with 
purple bows ready for travelling," and mentions 
how she and Dorothy " laughed uproariously " 
at a play they had "attended." Yet death had 
already laid his hand on this bright young life. 

Mrs. Siddons proceeded on her melancholy 
journey, stopping to pay a visit to Shakespeare's 
house at Stratford, and thence to North Wales, 
where, at Conway Castle and Penman Mawr, 



268 MRS. SIDDONS 

they did the tourist business of gazing at sun- 
sets through ruined windows, and listening to 
Welsh harpers harping below. " In that roman- 
tic time and place," Campbell tells us in his 
ambiguous way, Mrs. Siddons " honored the 
humblest poet of her acquaintance by remem- 
bering him ; and, let the reader blame or pardon 
my egotism as he may think fit, T cannot help 
transcribing what the Diarist adds : Mrs. Sid- 
dons said : ' I wish that Campbell were here.' 

The bathos is complete when, the poet tells 
us, on Miss Wilkinson's authority, that while 
looking at a magnificent landscape of rocks and 
water, a lady within hearing of them exclaimed 
in ecstasy : " This awful scenery makes me feel 
as if I were only a worm, or a grain of dust, on 
the face of the earth." . Mrs. Siddons turned 
round and said, " I feel very differently ! " 

She spent two months acting successfully in 
Dublin ; then she went to Cork, and then to 
Belfast. On her return to Dublin she received 
the news of the death of her father at the ripe 
age of eighty-two. Although not unexpected 
the severance of this life-long affection, coming 
as it did, at a time when other sorrows and anx- 
ieties weighed on her, was a trying blow, and 
we find her writing to Dr. Whalley with a cer- 
tain irritation that betrays her state of mind, and 



SORROWS. 269 

also betrays her attitude towards her husband at 
this time on money matters. 

"I thank you for your kind condolence. My 
dear father died the death of the righteous ; may 
my last end be like his, without a groan. With 
respect to my dear Mrs. Pennington, my heart 
is too much alive to her unhappy situation, and 
my affection for her too lively, to have induced 
the necessity of opening a wound which is of 
itself too apt to bleed. Indeed, indeed, my dear 
Sir, there was no Occasion to recall those sad 
and tender scenes to soften my nature ; but let 
it pass. You need not be informed, I imagine, 
that such a sum as £%0 is too considerable to 
be immediately produced out of a woman's quar- 
terly allowance ; but, as I have not the least 
doubt of Mr. Siddons being ready and willing to 
offer this testimony of regard and gratitude, I 
beg you will arrange the business with him im- 
mediately. I will write to him this day, if I can 
find a moment's time. If you can devise any 
quicker mode of accomplishing your amiable 
purpose, rely upon my paying the .£80 within 
the next six months. For God's sake do not let 
it slip through. If I knew how to send the 
money from here, I would do it this instant ; 
but, considering the delay of distance, and the 
caprice of wind and sea, it will be more expedi- 



270 MRS. SID DONS. 

tiously done by Mr. Siddons. God bless and 
restore you to perfect health and tranquillity." 

We can read between the lines of this letter, 
as we know that about this time she received a 
pressing request from her husband for money to 
fit out their son George for India, and to pay 
debts incurred on the decoration of the house in 
Great Marlborough street, suggesting that in 
consequence she had better accept an engage- 
ment in Liverpool. She preferred, however, 
though harassed by disagreements with Jones 
the manager, to remain in Dublin. A report 
was circulated, as on the occasion of her first 
visit to Ireland, that she had refused to play for 
the benefit of the Lying-in Hospital, a charity 
much patronised by the Dublin ladies. She 
indignantly refuted this accusation, ending with 
words that show her state of mental suffering: — ■ 

" It is hard to bear at one and the same time 
the pressure of domestic sorrow, the anxiety of 
business, and the necessity of healing a wound- 
ed reputation ; but such is the rude enforcement 
of the time, and I must sustain it as I am ena- 
bled by that Power who tempers the wind to the 
shorn lamb." 

Her son George came and spent a fortnight 
with her before his departure for India, and the 
news from home concerning her daughter still 



SORROWS. 271 

seemed good. Like a thunderbolt, therefore, 
from a summer sky, came a letter from Mr. Sid- 
dons addressed to Miss Wilkinson, saying that 
Sally was very ill, but begging her not to make 
Mrs. Siddons anxious by telling her. Miss Wil- 
kinson, however, felt it to be her duty to show 
the letter. The mother's heart divined all that 
was not said. She declared her intention of 
starting for England without delay. A violent 
gale had blown for some days, and no vessel 
would leave the harbor. Two days later a reas- 
suring letter came from Siddons addressed to 
his wife, telling her all was well again, and advis- 
ing her to go to Cork. She went, but her mis- 
erable state of mind may be guessed from a letter 
addressed to Mrs. Fitzhugh : — 

"Cork, March 21st, 1803. 
" My Dear Friend, — How shall I sufficiently 
thank you for all your kindness to me ? You 
know my heart, and I may spare my words, for, 
God knows, my mind is in so distracted a state, 
that I can hardly write or speak rationally. Oh ! 
why did not Mr. Siddons tell me when she was 
first taken so ill ? I should then have got clear 
of this engagement, and what a world of wretch- 
edness and anxiety would have been spared to 
me ! And yet — good God ! how should I have 



272 MRS. SID DONS. 

crossed the sea ? For a fortnight past it has 
been so dangerous, that nothing but wherries 
have ventured to the Holy Head ; but yet I 
think I should have put myself into one of them 
if I could have known that my poor dear girl 
was so ill. Oh ! tell me all about her. I am 
almost broken-hearted, though the last accounts 
tell me that she has been mending for several 
days. Has she wished for me ? But I know — 
I feel that she has. The dear creature used to 
think it weakness in me when I told her of the 
possibility of what might be endured from ill- 
ness when that tremendous element divides one 
from one's family. Would to God I were at her 
bedside ! It would be for me then to suffer with 
resignation what I cannot now support with any 
fortitude. If anything could relieve the misery 
I feel, it would be that my dear and inestimable 
Sir Lucas Pepys had her under his care. Pray 
tell him this, and ask him to write me a word of 
comfort. Will you believe that I must play to- 
night, and can you imagine any wretchedness 
like it in this terrible state of mind ? For a 
moment I comfort myself by reflecting on the 
strength of the dear creature's constitution, 
which has so often rallied, to the astonishment 
of us all, under similar serious attacks. Then, 
again, when I think of the frail tenure of human 



SORROWS. 273 

existence, my heart fails and sinks into dejection. 
God bless you ! The suspense that distance 
keeps me in, you may imagine, but it cannot be 
described." 

Meantime, no letters came. The winds raged 
without, and no vessel could cross. At the end 
of the week the news that arrived was not satis- 
factory. She made up her mind to throw up her 
engagement at any cost, and return. She and 
Patty Wilkinson set out for Dublin ; there they 
were again detained, and received no news. 
Nearly beside herself with anxiety, she again 
appealed to Mrs. Fitzhugh : — 

" Dublin, April 2nd, 1803. 
" I am perfectly astonished, my dear Friend, 
that I have not heard from you after begging it 
so earnestly. Good God ! what can be the rea- 
son that intelligence must be extorted, as it 
were, in circumstances like mine ? One would 
think common benevolence, setting affection 
quite aside, might have induced some of you to 
alleviate as much as possible such distress as 
you know I must feel. The last letter from Mr. 
Siddons stated that she was better. Another 
letter from Mr. Montgomery, at Oxford, says 
that George gave him the same account. Why 
18 



274 MRS - SIDDONS. 

— why am I to hear this only from a person at 
that distance from her, and so ill-informed as the 
writer must be of the state of her health ? Why 
should not you or Mr. Siddons have told me 
this ? I cannot account for your silence at all, 
for you know how to feel. I hope to sail to- 
night, and to reach London the third day. God 
knows when that will be. Oh God ! what a home 
to return to, after all I have been doing ! and 
what a prospect to the end of my days." 

At last she was able to cross to Holyhead. 
At Shrewsbury she received a letter from Mr. 
Siddons confirming the worst accounts of Sally's 
illness, but begging her to " remember the pre- 
ciousness of her own life, and not to endanger it 
by over-rapid travelling." As she read, Miss 
Wilkinson was called from the room ; a messen- 
ger had arrived with the news of the girl's death. 
Mrs. Siddons guessed what had happened by the 
expression of Miss Wilkinson's face when she 
returned, and, sinking back speechless, lay for a 
day " cold and torpid as a stone, with scarcely a 
sign of life." 

Her own family came forward with consola- 
tion and help. Her brother John wrote a letter, 
which she received at Oxford ; her brother 
Charles came to meet her, and conducted her on 
her first visit to her widowed mother. Every 



SORROWS. 275 

other grief had sunk into insignificance by the 
side of the death of her daughter. So worn out 
was she with misery and overwork, that the doc- 
tors recommended the quiet and bracing air of 
Cheltenham. We get a glimpse of her frame of 
mind in a letter addressed thence to her friend 
Mrs. Fitzhugh in June 1803: — 

" The serenity of the place, the sweet air and 
scenery of my cottage and the medicinal effect 
of the waters, have done some good to my shat- 
tered constitution. I am unable at times to rec- 
oncile myself to my fate. The darling being for 
whom I mourn is assuredly released from a life 
of suffering, and numbered among the blessed 
spirits made perfect. But to be separated for 
ever, in spite of reason, and in spite of religion, 
is at times too much for me. Give my love to 
dear Charles Moore, if you chance to see him. 
Have you read his beautiful account of my sweet 
Sally ? It is done with a truth and modesty 
which has given me the sincerest of all pleas- 
ures that I am now allowed to feel, and assures 
me still more than ever that he who could feel 
and taste such excellence was worthy of the par- 
ticular regard she had for him." 

The life out of doors at Birch Farm, reading 
"under the haystack in the farm-yard," rambling 
in the fields, and " musing in the orchard," grad- 



276 MRS. SIDDONS. 

ually soothed the poignancy of her grief. " Ris- 
ing at six and going to bed at ten, has brought 
me to my comfortable sleep once more," she 
writes. " The bitterness and anguish of selfish 
grief begins to subside, and the tender recollec- 
tions of excellence and virtues gone to the blessed 
place of their eternal reward, are now the sad 
though sweet companions of my lonely walks." 

In spite of all her stoicism and resolve, how- 
ever, the sense of her loss would come back, car- 
rying away all artificial barriers of restraint. 

" If he thinks himself unfortunate," she wrote 
of a friend, " let him look on me and be silent 
— 'the inscrutable ways of Providence.' Two 
lovely creatures gone, and another is just arrived 
from school with all the dazzling frightful sort of 
beauty that irradiated the countenance of Maria, 
and makes me shudder when I look at her. I 
feel myself like poor Niobe grasping to her bo- 
som the last and youngest of her children ; and, 
like her, look every moment for the vengeful 
arrow of destruction. Alas ! my dear Friend, 
can it be wondered at that I long for the land 
where they are gone to prepare their mother's 
place ? What have I here ? Yet here, even 
here, I could be content to linger still in peace 
and calmness — content is all I wish. But I 
must again enter into the bustle of the world; 



SORROWS. 277 

for though fame and fortune have given me all I 
wish, yet while my presence and my exertions 
here may be useful to others, I do not think 
myself at liberty to give myself up to my own 
selfish gratification. The second great com- 
mandment is ' Love thy neighbor as thyself,' and 
in this way I shall most probably best make my 
way to Heaven." 

How inscrutable, indeed, are the ways of Prov- 
idence. Sally was her eldest daughter and her 
dearest child. She had been born two months 
before that terrible period of probation and fail- 
ure at Drury Lane. Hers were the baby fingers, 
hers the baby voice, that had coaxed the poor 
young mother back to resignation and courage. 
She was twenty-seven when she was taken, and 
had ever been the sunshine of the home. Yes, 
she was the dearest. Strange that, deaf to our 
anguish and suffering, those are so often they 
who are taken. If a heart in such a trial can 
still believe and trust and love, then it is faith 
indeed —heaven-born, sublime. And such, we 
see, was the broken-hearted mother's. 

During her stay at Birch Farm, John Kemble, 
Charles Moore, and Miss Dorothy Place, her 
daughter Sally's particular friend, came to stay 
with her. In July they all of them made an 
excursion along the Wye, after which she paid a 



278 MRS. SIDDONS. 

visit to her friend Mr. Fitzhugh at Bannister's, 
and then returned to London, where she made 
an engagemeut to act the following winter at 
Covent Garden. 

Other trials awaited Mrs. Siddons, trials that, 
to a woman of her proud and sensitive temper, 
must have been torture in the extreme. What- 
ever her sufferings had been in the course of 
her professional career, from scandal and mis- 
representation, her character as a wife and 
mother had been untouched. Now, when no 
longer young, and anxious to escape from the 
harassing turmoil of the stage into the dignity 
and calm of a domestic life surrounded by her 
children and friends, a blow fell on her under 
which, for the time, she almost sank. The cir- 
cumstance is not alluded to either by Campbell 
or Boaden, but is so interwoven with Mrs. Sid- 
dons' existence, and so colors her mode of 
thought at the time, that it can hardly be passed 
over. 

Mrs. Siddons met Katherine Galindo, author of 
the libel, at the theatre in Dublin. She was a 
subordinate actress, and her husband a fencing- 
master. It is difficult to understand how she can 
have become so intimate, except that her own 
perfect sincerity and openness led her to bestow 
confidence on a variety of persons, many of 



SORROWS. 279 

them not in any way worthy of it. Her daugh- 
ter, Cecilia, who later wrote " Recollections " of 
her mother, says that, instead of being hard and 
calculating, as the outside public imagined, her 
mother was, on the contrary, too easy — too 
much disposed to be ruled by people inferior in 
every way to herself, credulous to an extraordi- 
nary extent, always trusting to appearances, and 
never willing to suspect anyone. Perhaps, also, 
the great actress's weakness was a wish to 
" make use " of people, and a love of flattery — 
both dangerous qualities for a woman in her 
position, laying her open, as they did, to the 
machinations of adventurers. Be it as it may, 
we are astounded at the girlish sentimentality of 
the letters she wrote to the Galindos. Allowing 
even for the Laura Matilda style of expression 
of the period, they show the substratum of ro- 
manticism that underlies her character. The 
Galindos accompanied her to Cork, and then to 
Killarney. Mrs. Siddons used all her influence 
to induce Harris, of Covent Garden, to give 
Mrs. Galindo an engagement ; but Kemble, when 
he arrived from abroad, refused to ratify it. A 
letter from Mrs. Inchbald says : — 

" When Kemble returned from Spain in 1803, 
he came to me like a madman, said Mrs. Siddons 
had been imposed upon by persons whom it was 



280 MRS. SIDDONS. 

a disgrace to her to know, and he begged me to 
explain it so to her. He requested Harris to 
withdraw his promise of his engaging Mrs. G. at 
Mrs. Siddons' request. Yet such was his ten- 
derness to his sister's sensibility, that he would 
not undeceive her himself. Mr. Kemble blamed 
me, and I blamed him for his reserve, and I have 
never been so cordial since. Nor," ends Mrs. 
Inchbald, with the prim self-sufficiency quite 
consistent with what we know of the " dear 
Muse," "have I ever admired Mrs. Siddons so 
much since ; for, though I can pity a dupe, I 
must also despise one. Even to be familiar with 
such people was a lack of virtue, though not of 
chastity." 

We read later in Rogers's "Table Talk" that, 
not long before Mrs. Inchbald's death he met 
her walking near Charing Cross, and we are not 
astonished to be told that she had been calling 
on several old friends, but had seen none of 
them — some being really not at home, and oth- 
ers denying themselves to her. " I called," she 
said, "on Mrs. Siddons. I knew she was at 
home, yet I was not admitted." 

To return, however, to the Galindos. The 
wretched woman was stung to the quick by the 
withdrawal of her engagement at Covent Gar- 
den, and although Mrs. Siddons advanced a thou- 



SORROWS. 28l 

sand pounds to the husband to buy a share in a 
provincial theatre, and showed them much kind- 
ness, the jealous and infuriated wife published 
in pamphlet form a wild and libellous attack on 
the great actress, to which she added the letters 
that had passed between them in their days of 
intimacy. By artfully turning and suppressing 
sentences here and there, she succeeded in giv- 
ing a significance never intended in the origi- 
nals. Although she said she had advanced 
nothing but what she could substantiate by the 
most certain evidence, if called upon to do so, 
she gave no proof whatever except of her own 
wild jealousy and unreasoning disappointment at 
being refused an engagement at Covent Garden. 
It seems incredible that a woman of Mrs. Sid- 
dons' social knowledge can have been so impru- 
dent as to enter into such an intimacy, and to 
write in such a strain of deep affection to people 
she had known only so short a time. The fol- 
lowing is a specimen : — 

"Holyhead, Sunday, 12 o'clock. 
" For some hours we had scarce a breath of 
wind, and the vessel seemed to leave your coast 
as unwillingly as your poor friend. About six 
o'clock this morning the snowy tops of the 
mountains appeared ; they chilled my heart, for 



282 MRS. SID DONS. 

I felt that they were emblematic of the cold and 

dreary prospect before me. Mr. has been 

very obliging ; he has just left us, but it is prob- 
able we shall meet again upon the road. I 
thought you would be glad to know we were 
safely landed. I will hope, my beloved friends, 
for a renewal of the days we have known, and in 
the meantime endeavor to amuse and cheer my 
melancholy with the recollection of past joys, 
though they be 'sweet and mournful to the soul.' 
" God bless you all, and do not forget 

" Your faithful, affectionate, 

"S. Siddons." 

A little later she writes : — 

" Pray ask Mr. G to send me those sweet 

lines ' To Hope ' — that which he gave me is 
almost effaced by my tears — and let it be writ- 
ten by the same hand. I could never describe 
what I have lost in you, my beloved friends, and 
the sweet angel that is gone forever ! Good 
God ! what a deprivation in a few days. Adieu ! 
Adieu ! " 

Needless to say, this " screeching " friendship 
ended as one might expect. As we have said, 
she failed to obtain an engagement for Mrs. 
Galindo at Covent Garden, and lent Galindo a 



SORROWS, 283 

thousand pounds to help him to take shares in a 
theatrical company at Manchester. He never 
repaid the thousand pounds, and became abusive 
when she asked for it. She accused him, in a 
letter addressed to Miss Wilkinson, of " hypoc- 
risy and ingratitude," and the wife accused her 
of having nourished an affection passing the 
bounds of propriety for her husband. All her 
real friends mustered round her, but she suffered 
terribly. 

She wrote to Dr. Whalley : — 

"Among all the kind attentions I have re- 
ceived, none has comforted me more, my dear 
friend, than your invaluable letter. I thank 
God all my friends are exactly of your opinion 
with respect to the manner of treating this dia- 
bolical business. To a delicate mind publicity 
is in itself painful, and I trust that a life of tol- 
erable rectitude will justify my conduct to my 
friends. I have been dreadfully shaken, but I 
trust that the natural disposition to be well 
will shortly restore me. My dear Cecilia is, 
indeed, all a fond mother can wish." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

WESTBOURNE FARM. 

John Kemble was now both actor and mana- 
ger at Covent Garden, and the results were 
much more satisfactory in every way to Mrs. 
Siddons. Harris the proprietor was strictly 
punctual in his payments, and the Kemble fam- 
ily, who numbered Charles Kemble in their 
ranks, were sufficient to make the performances 
attractive enough to the public. Mrs. Siddons 
appeared in several of her old parts ; amongst 
others in Elvira, when the actor Cooke came on 
so drunk as to be unable to act his part. He 
did not improve matters by attempting to excuse 
himself. He could only articulate, "Ladies and 
Gentlemen, my old complaint," when he was 
removed, and Henry Siddons had to read his 
part. Fit pendant to the night when he ap- 
peared as Sir Archy Macsarcasm with John- 
stone, who was playing Sir Calaghan. There 
was a dead pause : At last Johnstone, advancing 
to the footlights, said with a strong brogue, 
" Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Cooke says he 
(284) 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 285 

can't spake," which bull was received with roars 
of laughter and hisses. 

The great actress performed sixty times that 
season. At its conclusion she went on a visit 
to Mrs. Damer at Strawberry Hill, where she 
met Louis Philippe, afterwards King of France, 
and the Prince Regent. The two ladies, when- 
ever they were together, indulged their passion 
for sculpture. As winter approached she suf- 
fered much from rheumatism, and, for the sake 
of country air, removed from Great Marlborough 
street to a cottage at Hampstead for a few 
weeks. Mr. Siddons, who was also a martyr to 
rheumatism, had advocated the change, and the 
old gentleman was much delighted with his new 
' abode. He ate his dinner, and, looking out at 
the beautiful view that stretched before the win- 
dows, observed, " Sally, this will cure all our ail- 
ments." In spite of his hopes, however, Mrs. 
Siddons was confined to bed for weeks with 
acute rheumatism. She tried electricity with 
some beneficial effect, but suffered anguish while 
undergoing the treatment. 

As the winter advanced they returned to 
town ; but Mr. Siddons grew so much worse 
that he resolved to try the waters of Bath. Mrs. 
Siddons parted, therefore, with her house in 
Marlborough Street, and took lodgings for her- 



286 MRS. SIDDONS. 

self and Miss Wilkinson in Princes Street, 
Hanover Square. Her landlord there was an 
upholsterer of the name of Nixon. He and his 
wife always talked afterwards with the deepest 
affection of Mrs. Siddons. One day, looking at 
Nixon's card, she found that he was also an un- 
dertaker, and said laughingly, " I engage your 
services to bury me, Mr. Nixon." Twenty-seven 
years afterwards Nixon did so. 

During the winter and spring of 1804 and 
1805 Mrs. Siddons only performed twice at Co- 
vent Garden, partly in consequence of delicate 
health, partly in consequence of the appearance 
of Master Betty, the "young Roscius," a prodigy 
whom the public ran after with an enthusiasm 
that seems inexplicable. Managers gave him 
sums that a Garrick or a Siddons were unable to 
obtain ; his bust was done by the best sculptors ; 
his portrait painted by the best artists, and 
verses written in a style of idolatrous adulation 
were poured upon this boy of thirteen. Actors 
and actresses were obliged to appear on the 
stage with him to avoid giving offence. Mrs. 
Siddons and Kemble, with praiseworthy dignity, 
retired while the infatuation lasted. She went 
to see him, however, and gave him what praise 
she thought his due. Lord Abercorn came into 
her box, declaring it was the finest acting he had 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 287 

ever seen. "My Lord," she answered, "he is a 
very clever, pretty boy but nothing more." 

Independently of the boy Betty, or any other 
trials in her profession, Mrs. Siddons now began 
to long for rest. We have seen how years before, 
when in Dublin, she had expressed herself to 
Dr. Whalley : " I don't build any castles, but 
cottages without end. May the great Disposer 
of all events but permit me to spend the evening 
of my toilsome, bustling day in a cottage where 
I may sometimes have the converse and society 
which will make me more worthy those imper- 
ishable habitations which are prepared for the 
spirits of just men made perfect ! " 

In the April of 1805 she satisfied this wish by 
taking a cottage at Westbourne, near Padding- 
ton. With the help of Nixon she fitted it up 
luxuriously, built an additional room behind for 
a studio, and laid out the shrubbery and garden. 
Westbourne was then, we are told, one of those 
delightful rural spots for which Paddington was 
distinguished. It occupied a rising ground, and 
commanded a lovely view of Hampstead, High- 
gate and the distant city. Mrs. Siddons' was a 
small retired house, in a garden screened with 
poplars and evergreens, resembling a modest 
rural vicarage, standing, it is said, on the site 
now levelled for the Great Western Railway Sta- 
tion. She loved, she said, to escape from " the 



288 MRS. SID DONS. 

noise and din of London" to the green fields 
surrounding her new home. 

Here her friends congregated round her also. 
Miss Berry and Madame D'Arblay both men- 
tion, in their diaries, having spent an afternoon 
and met many people at Mrs. Siddons' country 
retreat. 

" I spoke in terms of rapture of Mrs. Siddons 
to Incledon," Crabb Robinson tells us. " He 
replied, ' Ah ! Sally's a fine creature. She has 
a charming place on the Edgware Road. I 
dined with her last year, and she paid me one of 
the finest compliments I ever received. I sang 
" The Storm " after dinner. She cried and sobbed 
like a child. Taking both of my hands she said, 
" All that I and my brother ever did is nothing 
compared with the effect you produce." ' 

The following lines were written by Mr. Sid- 
dons, describing his wife's country retreat, dur- 
ing the last visit he ever paid to it : — 
i 

Would you I 'd Westbourne Farm describe ; 

I'll do it then, and free from gall, 
For sure it would be sin to gibe 

A thing so pretty and so small. 
2 
The poplar walk, if you have strength, 

Will take a minute's time to step it ; 
Nay, certes, 'tis of such a length, 

'T would almost tire a frog to leap it 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 289 

3 

But when the pleasure-ground is seen, 
Then what a burst comes on the view ; 

Its level walk, its shaven green, 

Por which a razor's stroke would do. 

4 
Now, pray be cautious when you enter, 

And curb your strides from much expansion j 
Three paces take you to the centre, 

Three more, you 're close against the mansion. 

5 
The mansion, cottage, house, or hut, 

Call 't what you will, has room within 
To lodge the King of Lilliput, 

But not his court, nor yet his queen. 

6 

The kitchen-garden, true to keeping, 

Has length and breadth and width so plenty ; 

A snail, if fairly set a-creeping, 

Could scarce go round while you told twenty. 

. 7 
Perhaps you'll cry, on hearing this, 

What 1 everything so very small ? 
No ; she that made it what it is 

Has greatness that makes up for all. 

Mr. Siddons passed some weeks at West- 
bourne, but, finding the rheumatism from which 
he suffered only relieved at Bath, he was obliged 
to reside there almost permanently. Bath did 
not agree with Mrs. Siddons, and the exigencies 
of her profession obliged her to live in London. 
19 



290 MRS. SID DONS. 

This difference in their place of abode caused a 
rumor to get abroad that a formal separation had 
taken place. Mr. Boaden, indeed, states explic- 
itly that Siddons became at this time somewhat 
impatient of the "crown matrimonial," while 
Campbell declares the report to be "absolutely 
unfounded." 

In judging the case we think, perhaps, a me- 
dium course would be the best to take. We can 
imagine a decided incompatibility in the hus- 
band's and wife's mode of seeing things. She 
was ever impatient towards want of energy and 
practical capacity, while he, all his life having to 
play second to her, was jealous of the disposal of 
her earnings, and rushed into ill-judged invest- 
ments and speculations. 

The following letter of good-humored banter, 
written to him on the 16th December 1804, re- 
veals the manner in which she turned off his 
weak ebullitions of temper : — 

"My Dear Sid., — I am really sorry that my 
little flash of merriment should have been taken 
so seriously, for I am sure, however we may 
differ in trifles, we can never cease to love each 
other. You wish me to say what I expect to 
have done. I can expect nothing more than 
you yourself have designed me in your will. Be 



WESTS OURNE FARM. 29 1 

(as you ought to be) the master of all while God 
permits ; but in case of your death, only let me 
be put out of the power of any person living. 
This is all that I desire ; and I think that you 
cannot but be convinced that it is reasonable and 
proper. 

" Your ever affectionate and faithful, S. S." 

The wife's was the stronger, more powerful 
mind, and with her sincerity and openness of dis- 
position which impelled her to show everything 
she thought or felt, we have no doubt she often 
offended the irritable vanity of a man who, in 
small things, had a painful sense of his own dig- 
nity. Hers was too big a nature to nag and 
fight about trifles, and at the same time often too 
self-absorbed to remember how she offended the 
susceptibilities of others. 

" To live in a state of contention," she writes, 
" with a brother I so tenderly love, and with a 
husband with whom I am to spend what remains 
of life, would be more than my subdued spirit 
and almost broken heart would be able to endure. 
In answer to the second, I can only say that the 
testimony of the wisdom of all ages, from the 
foundation of the world to this day, is childish- 
ness and folly, if happiness be anything more 
than a name ; and, I am assured, our own expe- 



292 MRS. SIDDONS. 

rience will not allow us to refute the opinion. 
No, no, it is the inhabitant of a better world. 
Content, the offspring of Moderation, is all we 
ought to aspire to here, and Moderation, will be 
our best and surest guide to that happiness to 
which she will most assuredly conduct us." 

In the season of 1806-7, at Covent Garden, 
she played Queen Katherine seven times, Lady 
Macbeth (to Cooke's Macbeth) five times, Isa- 
bella (" Fatal Marriage ") twice, Elvira twice, 
Lady Randolph once, Mrs. Beverley once, Eu- 
phrasia once, and Volumnia fifteen times. We 
see by this enumeration of her parts how she, 
and she alone, achieved popularity for Shake- 
speare. 

The subsequent season at Covent Garden was 
uncommonly short, and extended only to the 
nth of December, 1807, when the "Winter's 
Tale " was announced for her last appearance 
before Easter. As events turned out, it proved 
to be her last for the season. Immediately after 
the pe formance she went to Bath, where she 
spent six weeks with Mr. Siddons. He was so 
much improved in health as to make plans for 
the future, and declared his intention of spend- 
ing a part of the summer at Westbourne. She 
left him, therefore, comparatively free from anx- 
iety in February 1808. Within a month of her 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 293 

departure, however, he was seized with a violent 
attack of illness, and on the nth of March ex- 
pired. She immediately threw up her engage- 
ment in Edinburgh, and left for her London 
home. Thence, on the 29th March 1808, she 
wrote to Mrs. Piozzi : — 

" How unwearied is your goodness to me, my 
dear friend. There is something so awful in 
this sudden dissolution of so long a connexion, 
that I shall feel it longer than I shall speak of 
it. May I die the death of my honest, worthy 
husband; and may those to whom I am dear 
remember me when I am gone, as I remember 
him, forgetting and forgiving all my errors, and 
recollecting only my quietness of spirit and sin- 
gleness of heart. Remember me to your dear 
Mr. Piozzi. My head is still so dull with this 
stunning surprise that I cannot see what I write. 
Adieu ! dear soul ; do not cease to love your 
friend. — S. S." 

So ended the love story begun thirty-three 
years before. 

Before the end of the year she resumed her 
cap and bells again, but had only acted on one or 
two nights at Covent Garden before it was burn- 
ed to the ground. How the fire originated is a 
mystery. Some said that the wadding of a gun, 
in the performance of " Pizarro," must have 



294 MRS. SIDDONS. 

lodged unperceived in the crevice of the scenery. 
Miss Wilkinson declared afterwards, that before 
the audience left the house she perceived a 
strong smell of fire while sitting in Mr. Kemble's 
box, and on her way to Mrs. Siddons' dressing- 
room mentioned it to some of the servants ; 
they declared it to be the smell of the foot- 
lights. How complete and rapid the destruc- 
tion was we learn by the following letter written 
by Mrs. Siddons to her friend James Ballan- 
tyne. 

"My dear and estimable Friend, — You 
have by this time, I am confident, felt many a 
humane pang, for the wretched sufferers in the 
dreadful calamity which has been visited on me 
and those most dear to me. The losses to the 
Proprietors are incalculable, irreparable, and of 
all the precious and curious dresses and lace 
and jewels which / have been collecting for these 
thirty years — not one, no, not one article has 
escap'd ! The most grievous of these my losses 
is a piece of Lace which had been a Toilette of 
the poor Queen of France ; it was upwards of 
four yards long, and more than a yard wide. It 
never could have been bought for a thousand 
pounds, but that's the least regret. It was so 
interesting ! ! But oh ! let me not suffer myself 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 295 

in the ingratitude of repining, while there are 
so many reasons for thankful acknowledgment. 
My Brothers, God be praised ! did not hear of 
the fire till ev'ry personal exertion would have 
been utterly useless. It is as true as it is strange 
and awful, that ev'rything appear'd to be in per- 
fect Security at Two o'clock, and that at six 
(the time my poor brother saw it) the whole 
structure was as completely swept from the face 
of the earth as if such a thing had never existed. 
Thank God that it was so, since had it been oth- 
erwise, he wou'd probably have perished in exer- 
tions to preserve something from the terrible 
wreck of his property. This is comfort. And 
you, my noble-minded friend, wou'd, I am confi- 
dent, participate the joy I feel, in beholding this 
ador'd brother, Stemming this torrent of adver- 
sity with a manly fortitude, Serenity, and even 
hope, that almost bursts my heart with an admi- 
ration too big to bear, and blinds my eyes with 
the most delicious tears that ever fell from my 
eyes. Oh ! he is a glorious creature ! did not I 
always tell you so ? Yes, yes, and all will go 
well with him again ! She bears it like an Angel 
too. Lord Guilford and Lord Mount joy have 
nobly offer'd to raise him any sum of money — 
and a thousand instances of generous feeling 
have already offer'd that evince the goodness of 



296 MRS. SID DONS. 

human nature, and -its Sense of his worth. All 
this is so honorable to him, that I shall soon feel 
little regret except for the poor beings who per- 
ished in the devouring fire. 

"James Ballantyne — God bless and prosper 
all the desires and designs of a heart so amiable, 
a head so sound ! prays most fervently his truly 
affectionate friend, S. Siddons." 

" My head is so confused I scarce know what I 
have written ; but you wish'd me to answer your 
kind letter immediately, therefore excuse all de- 
fects ! " 

The result of John Kemble's thirty years of 
hard service was swept away in the flames that 
destroyed Covent Garden. Mr. Heathcote's 
loan was still unpaid. Boaden gives us a tragi- 
comic account of a visit he paid at the Kembles' 
house the morning after the fire. Mrs. Kemble 
loudly expressing her sorrow. Charles Kemble 
sitting listening, a tragic expression on his natu- 
rally melancholy face ; John shaving himself 
before the glass. " Yes," he said to his visitor 
in the intervals of this operation, "it has per- 
ished — that magnificent theatre ! It is gone, 
with all its treasures of every description ; that 
library, which contained all those immortal pro- 
ductions of our countrymen ; that wardrobe ; 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 297 

the scenery. Of all this vast treasure, nothing 
now remains but the arms of England over the 
entrance of the theatre, and the Roman eagle 
standing solitary in the market-place." 

All differences which were said to have arisen 
between brother and sister were sunk and for- 
gotten in this crisis. Though she may have 
smiled at his sententiousness, and snubbed Mrs. 
Kemble's loud-voiced expressions of grief, she 
now gave him efficient help in re-constituting the 
theatre. The performances of the company were 
transferred first to the Opera House, and after- 
wards to the Haymarket Theatre. Between 
September 12th, 1808, and May 6th, 1809, she 
acted forty times. The wear and tear of this on 
a woman of her years — she was now over fifty — 
must have been great indeed. All seemed to 
turn to her, to depend on her masculine strength 
of will and energy. 

Beside the anxiety of her profession, we find 
her occupied with the future of her children. 
Letter after letter could be quoted, showing the 
affectionate and practical interest • she took in 
their welfare, in spite of the statement circula- 
ted, and believed in, that she bargained and hag- 
gled with her son Henry as though he were 
some manager with whom she was doing busi- 
ness. She wrote on November 26th, 1808, to 



298 MRS. SIDDONS. 

Mr. Ingles on the subject of an expedition to 
Edinburgh, to help her son in his theatrical ven- 
ture there : — 

" Independently of any other consideration, it 
is a great object to me to have a reasonable ex- 
cuse for spending much of my remaining life in 
the admired and beloved society of Scotland; I 
am therefore, on my own account as well as his, 
naturally anxious for the Success of my Son in 
the Theatre, and I think I may without arro- 
gance aver that you cou'd not chuse better. He 
has great qualifications and wou'd not be the 
worse, I apprehend, for my advice in respect to 
Dramatic business, or for the pecuniary aid 
which I should be proud to afford in order to 
amplify the costume of The Stage. His abili- 
ties as an Actor need not my eulogium, and his 
private respectability is so universally acknowl- 
edged as to spare his mother the pain of boast- 
ing. I have done my part, and trust the rest to 
heaven ! I have written to all you advis'd me to 
write to, and now in one word let me thank you 
for your good counsel and assure you that what- 
ever be the result I shall for ever consider myself 
exceedingly oblig'd to you. So much ambiguity 
and darkness seems to envelop the business (the 
Galindo embroglio), however, that I know not 
what to wish — but that there was an end of both 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 299 

hopes and fears ; since nothing is so insupport- 
able as Suspense." 

Those who serve the public have much to 
suffer from the caprices of the crowd, but they 
also experience many proofs of the appreciation 
of their genius by individuals. The Kembles 
met with instances of kindness and friendliness 
at the moment of their need that strike one as 
almost fabulous in their generosity. The Duke 
of Northumberland offered Kemble a loan of ten 
thousand pounds on his simple bond. He hesi- 
tated to accept, fearing his inability to pay the 
interest. The Duke promised he should never 
be pressed for it, and on the day of the laying 
the first stone he cancelled the bond, and made 
him a present of the whole sum. 

Aided by the munificence of patrons, fifty 
thousand pounds was soon subscribed ; nearly 
the same amount was received from the insur- 
ance companies, and on December 30th, 1808, 
the first stone was laid with Masonic honors. 
John Kemble was not a person to do away with 
the pomp of a ceremonial. All the actors and 
actresses were assembled ; Mrs. Siddons, wear- 
ing a nodding plume of ominous black feathers, 
while her brother, who had risen from his sick 
bed, stood under the torrents of rain in white 
silk stockings and pumps. 



300 MRS. SID DONS. 

In less than a twelvemonth from the time of 
its destruction the new theatre arose from the 
ashes of its predecessor. While it was building, 
Drury Lane, the opposition house, under Sheri- 
dan's management, was also burned to the 
ground, bringing down Sheridan with it in its 
ruin. 

The new Covent Garden was a much more 
magnificent building than its predecessor ; but 
the system of private boxes, which had been in- 
troduced first of all in Drury Lane, was now car- 
ried to an extreme extent, and the third circle of 
\ the theatre was entirely given over to them. 
This invasion of the privileges of the people by 
the aristocracy was not to be borne. The "lib- 
erty of the subject " had been talked into fashion 
by Fox and Burke, and the populace were de- 
termined to put their doctrines into practice in 
every department of life. They would not sub- 
mit, because the new house had the monopoly 
of catering for their amusement, to be slighted 
and thrust away in a dark gallery where they 
could neither see nor hear, while a "bloated 
aristocracy " lounged in commodious boxes with 
ante-rooms behind. We who deplore the radi- 
calism of the age, and the license permitted to 
free speech, should read the account -of the out- 
rageous O. P. (old prices) riots, and congratu- 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 301 

late ourselves on the improved decorum that 
reigns nowadays. 

The New House was opened on the 18th Sep- 
tember 1809. Crowded to the roof with a re- 
splendent audience, on whom shone the light 
shed by thousands of wax candles, with Kemble 
and Mrs. Siddons to act the parts of Macbeth 
and Lady Macbeth, a brilliant inauguration 
might have been expected. 

The National Anthem was sung, and then 
Kemble was to speak a poetical address. But 
the moment he made his appearance, dressed 
for Macbeth, a yell of defiance greeted him, 
while the mob in the pit stood up with their hats 
on and their backs to the stage. Kemble beg- 
ged a hearing in vain. His sister then appeared, 
pale but determined, and both of them went 
through their parts to the end. Whenever for 
an instant there was a lull in the yelling and 
hissing, the musical voice of the great actress 
was heard steadily going through her part. 

Two magistrates appeared on the stage and 
read the Riot Act ; soldiers rushed in to cap- 
ture the rioters, who let themselves down by the If 
pillars into the lower gallery. The sight of 
the soldiery, indeed, only increased the Babel. 
" Why were prices raised," the mob vociferated, 
" while exorbitant salaries were paid to the ac- 



302 MRS. SID DONS. 

tors and actresses ? The money received by the 
Kembles and Madame Catalani amounted for 
the season to £25,575. There was Mrs. Sid- 
dons with £50 a night ! The Lord Chief Jus- 
tice sat every day in Westminster Hall from 9 
to 4 for half the sum ! " " She and her brother 
also appeared frequently on the stage with 
clothes worth .£500.* All this was to be screw- 
ed out of the pockets of the public." 

The whole state of the popular mind at the 
time was suffering from the reflux of the revolu- 
tionary tide that had swept over France some 
years before. The way, indeed, in which the 
authorities behaved during the seventy nights 
the riots lasted, leads us to think that they were 
aware of the undercurrent of political excite- 
ment, and were glad to see it diverted into a 
channel that did not menace Church and State. 
In no other country in the world would such a 
state of things have been allowed to go on night 
after night. A magistrate now and then feebly 
appeared on the stage, and read inaudibly the 
Riot Act. On one occasion the public climbed 

* On the first night of the O. P. riots, we are told the actress 
wore a costume fashioned after the bridal suit of the unfortu- 
nate Queen of Scots, and was a perfect blaze with the jewels in 
the stomacher of the dress, as well as upon her hair and around 
her neck. 



WEST BOURNE FARM. 303 

the stage, and were only deterred from person- 
ally attacking the actors by the sudden opening 
of all the traps. A lady received an ovation for 
lending a pin to fasten a manifesto to one of the 
boxes, and the whole house was placarded with 
offensive mottoes. The proprietors had recourse 
to giving away orders to admit their own parti- 
sans. This led to furious fighting and scuffling. 
Pigeons were let loose, as symbols that the pub- 
lic were pigeoned ; aspersions were cast on the 
morality of the private boxes ; the leaders of the 
riot incited the crowd to further excesses by 
inflammatory speeches. On the sixth night 
Kemble came forward to announce that Cata- 
lani's engagement, one of the great grievances, 
was cancelled, and that the business books of 
the proprietors would be examined by compe- 
tent gentlemen to prove that the theatre was 
not a paying concern. The report appeared, 
proving that if any reduction were made in 
prices, the proprietors would lose three-fourths 
per cent, on their capital. This statement had 
no effect on the unreasoning mob. On the re- 
opening of the house on the 4th October, the 
riot began more furiously than ever. Cooke, 
unfortunately, in a prologue alluded to the late 
" hostile rage." The expression was like throw- 
ing a match into gunpowder. The people lashed 



*> 



304 MRS. SID DONS. 

themselves into a frenzy ; they assailed the 
boxes, and ran up and down the pit benches 
during the play. Then, too, was introduced, we 
are told, the famous O. P. war-dance in the pit, 
which seems to have resembled the French 
"Carmagnole," "with its calm beginning, its 
swelling into noise and rapidity, and its finale 
of demoniacal uproar and confusion." Princes 
of the Blood visited the boxes, and having beheld 
the spectacle, and heard the Babel of roaring 
throats, laughed and went home ! Afterwards 
the crowd marched to Kemble's house, 89 Great 
Russell street, Bloomsbury, and continued the 
riot there. At last arrests were made of the 
leaders, but they were acquitted, and Kemble 
consented to appear at the dinner given in their 
honor. This was a hauling down of the flag, 
but in reality the proprietors came off victors. 
The rate of admission to the pit was reduced by 
sixpence, but the half-price remained at two 
shillings. The private boxes were diminished, 
but the new price of admission was maintained. 
It must have been a bitter probation for proud 
tempers like the Kembles to go through. 

" My appearance of illness was occasioned 
entirely," Mrs. Siddons writes about this time to 
a friend, "by an agitating visit that morning 
from poor Mr. John Kemble, on account of the 



WESTB OURNE FARM. 305 

giving up of the private boxes, which, I fear, 
must be at last complied with. Surely nothing 
ever equalled the domineering of the mob in 
these days. It is to me inconceivable how the 
public at large submits to be thus dictated to, 
against their better judgment, by a handful of 
imperious and intoxicated men. In the mean- 
time, what can the poor proprietors do but yield 
to overwhelming necessity ? Could I once feel 
that my poor brother's anxiety about the theatre 
was at an end, I should be, marvellous to say, as 
well as I ever was in my life. But only conceive 
what a state he must have been in, however good 
a face he might put upon the business, for up- 
wards of three months ; and think what his poor 
wife and I must have suffered, when, for weeks 
together, such were the outrages committed on 
his house and otherwise, that I trembled for 
even his personal safety ; she, poor soul ! living 
with ladders at her windows in order to make 
her escape through the garden in case of an 
attack. Mr. Kemble tells me his nerves are 
much shaken. What a time it has been with us 
all — beginning with fire and continued with 
fury ! Yet sweet sometimes are the uses of ad- 
versity. They not only strengthen family affec- 
tion, but teach us all to walk humbly with our 
God, Yours, S. S." 

20 



306 MRS. SIDDONS. 

The fury of the rioters was principally directed 
against John Kemble, " Black Jack," as he was 
called. They never lost a certain respect for 
the great actress who had served them so long 
and so faithfully. We know the story of her 
appealing through the windows of her sedan- 
chair to the riotous crowds assembled round the 
theatre, " Good people, let me pass ; I am Sarah 
Siddons," and of the mob immediately falling 
back to make way for the dignified Queen of 
Tragedy. The whole business disheartened and 
saddened her, however. " I have not always 
met gratitude in a play-house," Garrick said, 
and she but repeated his words with a sigh. She 
wrote to her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Sid- 
dons : — 

" Octr. yubilee Day, 
" Westbourne Farm, Paddington" 
"My Dear Harriet, — Mrs. Sterling has 
kindly undertaken to deliver a parcel to you, 
which consists of a Book directed to you at 
Westbourne, and a little Toy apiece for my dear 
little Girls. I would give you an account of our 
Theatrical Situation if my right hand were not 
so weak that it is with difficulty that I hold my 
pen — I believe you saw it blistered at Liverpool, 
and I am sorry to say it is but little better for 
everything I have try'd to strengthen it. How- 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 307 

ever, the papers give, as I understand, a tolera- 
bly accurate account of this barbarous outrage 
to decency and reason, which is a National dis- 
grace : where it will end, Heaven knows, and it 
is now generally thought, I believe, that it will 
not end without the interference of Government, 
and, if they have any recollection of the riots of 
the year '80, it is wonderful they have let it go 
thus far. I think it very likely that I shall not 
appear any more this season, for nothing shall 
induce me to place myself again in so painful 
and so degrading a situation. Oh, how glad am 
I that you and my dear Harry are out of it all ! 
I long to hear how you are going on ; tell me 
very soon that you are all well and prosperous, 
and happy. I find that Mr. Harris is going to 
leave his house in Marlbro' Street, and you will 
have to let it to some other tenant at the end of 
his term — I forget how long he took it for. 
There is a Print of Mrs. Fitzhugh's Picture com- 
ing out very soon ; I am told it will be the finest 
thing that has been seen for many years. The 
Picture is more really like me than anything 
that has been done, and I shall get one for you 
and send it by the first opportunity. I have 
been amusing myself with making a model of 
Mrs. Fitzhugh, which everybody says is liker 
than anything that ever yet was seen of that 



30 8 MRS. SID DONS. 

kind. I hope there is modelling Clay to be had 
in Edinburgh, for, if it be possible, I will model 
a head of my dear Harry when I go there. Give 
him my love and my blessing. Accept the same 
for yourself and the darling children. Remem- 
ber me kindly to all our friends, but most afftly. 
to dear Miss Dallas and the family of Hume. 
Patty will write to you by Mrs. Sterling ; her 
letter will, I hope, be better written and more 
entertaining than mine. God bless you my dear- 
est Harriet. 

" Comps. whether it was his Waft, or himself. 
"To Mrs. H. Siddons." 

The riots were renewed on various occasions 
again, and though the frightened managers, by 
the aid of apologies and humiliations of all sorts, 
staved off a repetition of violence, the fate of the 
new house as a paying concern was sealed ; it 
had been a mistake artistically and financially 
from the first, and soon ceased to be used as a 
theatre. A poodle drove Goethe's and Schiller's 
plays from the stage of the Weimar Theatre, the 
" dog Carlo " and Master Betty drove "Macbeth 
and Coriolanus " from Covent Garden ; in both 
instances, the public was justified in its con- 
clusions, but not in the manner in which it 
expressed them. By their suppression of all 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 309 

applause and the restrictions they laid on their 
audience, the potentates of Weimar stopped all 
dramatic spontaneity ; by the size and unwield- 
iness of the theatre they built, and the banish- 
ment of the lower part of the audience to a 
distance from the stage, the proprietors of Co- 
vent Garden deprived their art of the indispen- 
sable verdict of the ordinary public. The Kem- 
bles' school of dramatic art also was passing 
away. Tney had substituted for the naturalness 
and variety of Garrick's style a measured and 
stately dignity. This stateliness was now des- 
tined to be succeeded by the impetuosity and 
spontaneous passion of Kean. 

We have seen that one of the boys introduced 
by John Kemble into the Witches' Scene in 
" Macbeth," and subsequently turned away for 
disobedience, was named Edmund Kean. This 
little imp, undeterred by hardship, degradation, 
and misery, had developed into one of the great- 
est geniuses that ever trod the English stage. 
Many are the stories given of Mrs. Siddons' first 
meeting with Kean, but all are unanimous that 
it was by no means a creditable performance so 
far as the young actor was concerned. It was 
in Ireland, either at Belfast or Cork. Kean had 
been engaged to act with her. As usual, instead 
of learning his part, he employed the interim 



310 MRS. SID DONS. 

between her arrival and the play in drinking 
with some friends, with such success that when 
he came upon the stage the whole of his part 
had vanished from his memory ; he was, there- 
fore, obliged to improvise as he went on. Need- 
less to say, his performance was a tissue of 
nonsense, sentences without meaning, drunken 
absurdities of all sorts. The audience was not 
a critical one, but Mrs. Siddons' disgust may be 
imagined. The next play to be performed was 
" Douglas," and in this Kean played Young Nor- 
val. Whether he was ashamed, and wished to 
show the great actress that he, too, was an actor, 
it is impossible to say, but he imparted such 
pathos and spirit to the part, that she was sur- 
prised into admiration. After the play (Kean 
himself tells us) she came to him, and patting 
him on the head, said : " You have played well, 
Sir. It 's a pity, but there 's too little of you to 
do anything." 

When the " little man " arrived in London, 
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons announced their in- 
tention of honoring with their presence the new 
actor's performance of Othello. A relative of 
Kean, who was very anxious about the result of 
the Kemble decision, placed herself in a box 
opposite, to observe the effect the performance 
produced on them. The Queen of Tragedy sat 



WESTBOURNE FARM. 3 1 1 

erect and looked cold ; Mr. Kemble gave a grave 
attention. But as the young actor warmed to 
his part, Mrs. Siddons showed a pleased surprise, 
and at last leaned forward, her fine head on her 
arm, quite engrossed in the scene, while Kemble 
expressed continual approbation, turning to his 
sister as each point told. At the triumphant 
close of the performance, Kean's friend ap- 
proached the Kembles' box. Mrs. Siddons 
would not allow that this extraordinary genius 
was the lad that had acted with her before. 
"Perhaps," she said, "he had assumed the name 
of Kean." " Then the present one has every 
right to drop it," said Kemble; "he is not 
Kean, but the real Othello." Yet Kemble must 
have known that night that a greater than he 
had arisen. It must have been a noteworthy 
scene, those two remarkable figures of a by-gone 
age, sitting in judgment on "the little gentle- 
man who," as Kemble said, " was always so ter- 
ribly in earnest," while he fretted and fumed on 
that stage, where he was destined to initiate a 
new ideal of dramatic art. 

Macready gives an interesting account of his 
first meeting the great actress whom every 
young aspirant looked up to with such awe. It 
was at Newcastle ; the "Gamester" and "Doug- 
las " were the plays selected, and the young actor 



312 MRS. SID DONS. 

received the appalling information that he was 
to act with her. With doubt, anxiety, and trep- 
idation he set about his work, the thought of 
standing by the side of the great mistress of her 
art hanging over him in terrorem. At last she 
arrived, and he received orders to go to the 
Queen's Head Hotel to rehearse. The impres- 
sion, he says, the first sight of her made on him 
recalled the page's description of the effect of 
Jane de Montfort's appearance on him in Joanna 
Baillie's tragedy. It was 

So queenly, so commanding, and so noble. 

In her grand, but good-natured manner, having 
seen his nervousness, she said, " I hope, Mr. 
Macready, you have brought some hartshorn 
and water with you, as I am told you are terri- 
bly frightened at me," and she made some re- 
marks about his being a very young husband. 
Her daughter Cecilia went smiling out of the 
room, and left them to the business of the morn- 
ing. 

Her instructions were vividly impressed on 
the young actor's memory, and he took his leave 
with fear and trembling. The audience were, 
as usual, encouraging, and the^ first scene passed 
with applause ; but in the next — his first with 
Mrs. Beverley — his fear overcame him to that 



WE STB URNE FARM. 3 1 3 

degree, that for a minute his presence ot mind 
forsook him ; his memory seemed to have gone, 
and he stood bewildered. She kindly whispered 
the word to him, and the scene proceeded. 
The enthusiastic young actor goes on : — 

She stood alone on her height of excellence. Her acting 
was perfect, and, as I recall it, I do not wonder, novice as I 
was, at my perturbation when on the stage with her. But in 
the progress of the play I gradually regained more and more 
my self-possession, and in the last scene, as she stood by the 
side wing, waiting for the cue of her entrance, on my utterance 
of the words, " My wife and sister ! Well, well ! there is but 
one pang more, and then farewell world ! " she raised her hands, 
clapping loudly and calling out : " Bravo, Sir, bravo ! " in sight 
of part of the audience, who joined in her applause. 

On that evening I was engaged to a ball, " where all the 
beauties " not of Verona, but of Newcastle — were to meet. 
Mrs. Siddons, after the play, sent to me to say, when I was 
dressed, she would be glad to see me in her room. On going 
in, she " wished," she said, " to give me a few words of advice 
before taking leave of me. You are in the right way," she 
said, "but remember what I say — study, study, study, and do 
not marry till you are thirty. I remember what it was to be 
obliged to study at nearly your age with a young family about 
me. Beware of that ; keep your mind on your art, do not re- 
mit your study, and you are certain to succeed. I know you 
are expected at a ball to-night, so I will not detain you, but do 
not forget my words — study well, and God bless you." Her 
words lived with me, and often in moments of despondency 
have come to cheer me. Her acting was a revelation to me, 
which ever after had its influence on me in the study of my art. 
Ease, grace, untiring energy through all the variations of human 
passion, blended into that grand and massive style, had been 



314 MRS. SID DONS. 

with her the result of patient application. On first witnessing 
her wonderful impersonations I may say with the poet : 

" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken." 

And I can only liken the effect they produced on me, in devel- 
oping new trains of thought, to the awakening power that 
Michael Angelo's sketch of the Colossal head in the Farnesina 
is said to have had on the mind of Raphael. 



CHAPTER XV. 

RETIREMENT. 

What wonder that Mrs. Siddons now seri- 
ously began to think of retirement. Already, in 
1805, she had written to a friend : " It is better 
to work hard and have done with it. If I can 
but add three hundred a year to my present 
income, I shall be perfectly well provided for ; 
and I am resolved when that is accomplished to 
make no more positive engagements in summer. 
I trust that God in His great mercy will enable 
me to do it ; and then, oh, how lazy, and saucy, 
and happy will I be ! You will have something 
to do, I can tell you, my dear, to keep me in 
order." This longing now became a distinct 
determination. 

In two letters written some time before, one 
to James Ballantyne and one to Lady Harcourt, 
she gave expression to this determination. To 
Lady Harcourt she wrote : — 

"You see where I am, and must know the 
place by representations as well as reports, I 
daresay, at least my lord does, yea, ' every coigne 

(315) 



316 MRS. SID DONS. 

and vantage ' of this venerable pile, and envies 
me the view of it just before me where I am 
writing. This is an inn. I set myself down 
here for the advantage of pure air and perfect 
quiet, rather than lodge in Leeds, most disagree- 
able town in His Majesty's dominions, God bless 
him. This day my task finishes. I have played 
there four nights, and am very tired of Kirkstall 
Abbey. It is too sombre for a person of my age, 
and I am no antiquarian. It is, however, ex- 
tremely beautiful. I am going to York for a 
week, and I hope while I am there to hear from 
you, my ever dear Lady Harcourt. I must 
work a little while longer to realize the blessed 
prospect (almost, I thank God, within my view) 
of sitting down in peace and quiet for the re- 
mainder of my life. About ^250 more a year 
will secure to me the comfort of a carriage, and, 
believe me, it is one of the favorite objects in 
that prospect that I shall have the happiness of 
seeing you and my dear Lord Harcourt often, 
very often ; for though time and circumstances, 
and that proud barrier of high birth, have all 
combined to separate our persons, yet allow me 
the modest ambition to think our minds are 
kindred ones, and, on my part, united ever since 
I had the honor and good fortune to be known 
to you. How could it be otherwise, since to 



RE TIR EMENT. 3 1 7 

know you both is to esteem and love you ? And 
now, my dear Lady Harcourt, I must leave you 
to dress for Belvidera. It is very sulky weather, 
and I am not i' the mood for acting, but I must 
play yet a little while longer, and then ! how 
peaceful, how comfortable shall I be, after the 
storms, the tempests, and afflictions of my labo- 
rious life ! God bless and preserve you, who 
are to make a large share of my happiness in 
that hour of peace." 

To James Ballantyne she expresses herself in 
the same tenor : — 

" I am wand'ring about the world to get a little 
more money. I am trying to Secure to myself 
the comfort of a Carriage, which is now an abso- 
lute necessary to me, and then — then I will sit 
down in quiet to the end of my days. You will 
perhaps be surprised to hear that I am not 
abundantly rich, but you know not the expences 
I have incurred in times past and the losses I 
have Sustain'd ; they drain one's purse beyond 
imagination. I shall be at York till the 15 th 
inst., from thence I go to Birmingham where I 
shall remain till the 4th of August, from the 25th 
of August till the 1st of Septr. I shall be at Man- 
chester and then return ' to that dear Hut my 
home.' You would scarcely know that Sweet 
little Spot it is so improv'd Since you Saw it. I 



318 MRS. SIDDONS. 

believe tho' I wrote you about my new dining 
Room and the pretty Bedchamber at the end of 
it, where you are to sleep unannoyd by your 
former neighbors in their mangers, Stalls, I 
shoud say, I believe. All the Lawrells are green 
and flourishing, all the wooden garden pales, 
hidden by Sweet Shrubs and flow'rs that form a 
verdant wall all round me : oh ! it is the pretti- 
est little nook in all the world, and I do hope 
you will Soon come and Say you think so. Your 
letter Surpris'd me in my " Garden of Eden," 
where it found me, ' chewing the Cud of Sweet 
and bitter fancy,' you making that very moment 
the principal person in the Drama of my mus- 
ings — and ' I said in my haste all men are liars.' 
It was more than probable that business, pleas- 
ure, illness and persons perhaps less deserving 
your regard, might have diverted recollection 
from one So distant So incapable of heightening 
the joys, alleviating the Sorrows of this 'work- 
ing day world ' and our hearts naturally yearn 
to those who Share our weal and woe. Yes, 
said I, his taste and feelings are alive to my tal- 
ents ; but he does not know me well enough to 
value me for Some qualities of greater worth, 
which in the honest pride of my heart I will not 
blush to say I possess — he admires me for my 
Celebrity which is all he knows of me. No 



RE TIRE ME NT. 3 1 9 

blame therefore attaches to him : he is ignorant 
of my real character, which if he knew he would 
also approve ; at least if I am not much mis- 
taken in myself and him — in myself I 'm sure I 
am not mistaken. It is a vulgar error to say we 
are ignorant of ourselves, for I am quite Sure 
that those who think at all Seriously must know 
themselves better than any other individual can." 

She had served the public for over thirty-five 
years, and was now in her fifty-sixth year. Long 
since the ten thousand pounds, which was the 
original sum with which in the heyday of her 
prosperity she said she would rest content, had 
been doubled. Some of this had been unfortu- 
nately invested by Mr. Siddons, and some had 
been lost in Sheridan's bankruptcy ; but still, 
for a person who had no very expensive personal 
tastes, whose children were all provided for, it 
was a handsome provision. 

Physical disabilities also began now to inter- 
fere with her dramatic effects. Alas ! for the 
days when an " exquisite, fragile, creature " 
acted Venus in Garrick's procession, and with 
her rosy lips whispered promises of sweatmeats 
into little Tommy Dibdin's ear. The actress 
had grown stout and unwieldy in person. When 
she acted Isabella, and knelt to the Duke, im- 
ploring mercy for her brother, two attendants 



320 MRS. SIDDONS. 

had to come forward to help her to rise ; and to 
make this appear correct, the same ceremony 
was gone through with a young actress who per- 
formed the same part and did not need any as- 
sistance whatever. By caricatures and portraits 
done of her at the time we can see how un- 
shapely she had become. Conventionality and 
hardness replaced the old spontaneity and pa- 
thos ; the action of the arms was more pro- 
nounced, the voice was unduly raised, and the 
deficiency in beauty and charm was supplied by 
energy and rant. Mrs. Siddons was only two 
years older than her brother, but her physical 
and mental gifts had deteriorated much more 
rapidly. The fact of the sister's dramatic power 
having been a natural gift, and his the result of 
industry and hard work, made hers fail more 
completely with waning strength. Besides all 
the disabilities of advancing age, that terrible 
fear of being supplanted was ever before her 
eyes. Mrs. Jordan had some years before 
snatched the laurels from her brow in Rosalind ; 
now rumors were wafted across the channel of a 
young and lovely actress, Miss O'Neill, who had 
taken all hearts captive as Juliet (a part Mrs. 
Siddons could never personate satisfactorily) ; 
the matchless beauty of form of the young aspi- 
rant, her sensibility and tenderness were the 






RE TIRE ME NT. 3 2 1 

theme of every tongue. " To hear these people 
talk, one would think /had never drawn a tear," 
she said sadly. 

The old sensitiveness and pride remained. 
She accused the public of taking pleasure in 
mortifying their old favorites by setting up new 
idols ; " I have been three times threatened with 
eclipse, first by means of Miss Brunton (after- 
wards Lady Craven), next by means of Miss 
Smith, and lastly by means of Miss O'Neill ; 
nevertheless," she added, "I am not yet extin- 
guished. Mrs. Siddons had no right to com- 
plain. She had drunk fully the draught of 
success and appreciation, and had been singu- 
larly exempt from rivalry in her own particular 
walk. No public, however indulgent, can save 
an actress from the penalties of old age. She 
herself had supplanted Mrs. Crawford, and not 
very gently. The transition point — the last in 
her life — had been reached, the chapter of active 
professional life was closed for ever, yet she 
could not resign herself to accept the decrepi- 
tude and inactivity of old age. " I feel as if I 
were mounting the first steps of a ladder con- 
ducting me to another world," she sighed. Moore 
mentions meeting her at the house of Rogers: 

" Mrs. Siddons came in the evening ; had a 
good deal of conversation with her, and was, for 
21 



322 MKS. SID DONS. 

the first time in my life, interested by her off the 
stage. She talked of the loss of friends, and 
mentioned herself as having lost twenty-six 
friends in the course of the last six years. It is 
something to have had so many. Among other 
reasons for her regret at leaving the stage was, 
that she always found in it a vent for her pri- 
vate sorrows, which enabled her to bear them 
better ; and often she has got credit for the 
truth and feeling of her acting when she was 
doing nothing more than relieving her own heart 
of its grief." 

She took her professional farewell of the stage 
on the 29th of June 18 12. As early as three 
o'clock in the afternoon people began to assemble 
about the pit and gallery doors, and at half-past 
four the mob was so great, that those who had 
come early, in the hope of getting a good place, 
were carried away by the rush of the increasing 
crowd under the arches. So great was the con- 
course of people, that not more than twenty of the 
weaker sex obtained places in the pit, and the 
house was crammed in every part. The play 
was " Lady Macbeth." When the great actress 
made her appearance, she was received with 
thunders of applause ; for a moment emotion 
overcame her, but, collecting herself, she went 
through her part as magnificently as in the early 



RETIREMENT. 323 

days. Often have old play-goers described the 
scene on that night. The grand pale face ; the 
pathetic voice on the stage, speaking its last to 
those whom it had delighted and thrilled for so 
many years. While among the audience, the 
heart-felt sorrow, the deep silence, only broken 
by smothered sobs ; then the irrepressible burst 
of feeling when the scene, in which she appears 
for the last time in " Lady Macbeth " was over, 
for the audience could bear it no longer. The 
applause continued from the time of her going 
off till she again appeared, to speak her address. 
When silence was restored, she began the fol- 
lowing farewell, written by her nephew Horace 
Twiss : — 

Who has not felt how growing use endears 

The fond remembrance of our former years ? 

Who has not sigh'd, when doom'd to leave at last 

The hopes of youth, the habits of the past, 

Ten thousand ties and interests, that impart 

A second nature to the human hearts. 

And wreathing round it close, like tendrils, climb, 

Blooming in age, and sanctified by time ! 

Yes ! at this moment crowd upon my mind 

Scenes of bright days for ever left behind. 

Bewildering visions of enraptured youth, 

When hope and fancy wore the hues of truth, 

And long forgotten years, that almost seem 

The faded traces of a morning dream ! 

Sweet are those mournful thoughts : for they renew 

The pleasing sense of all I owe to you, 



324 MRS. SID DONS. 

For each inspiring smile, and soothing tear — 
For those full honors of my long career, 
That cheer'd my earliest hope and chased my latest fear. 
And though for me those tears shall flow no more, 
And the warm sunshine of your smile is o'er ; 
Though the bright beams are fading fast away 
That shone unclouded through my summer day ; 
Yet grateful memory shall reflect their light 
O'er the dim shadows of the coming night, 
And lend to later life a softer tone, 
A moonlight tint — a lustre of her own. 
Judges and Friends ! to whom the magic strain 
Of nature's feeling never spoke in vain, 
Perhaps your hearts, when years have glided by, 
And past emotions wake a fleeting sigh, 
May think on her whose lips have poured so long 
The charm'd sorrows of your Shakespeare *s song : 
On her, who, parting to return no more, 
Is now the mourner she but seemed before ; 
Herself subdued, resigns the melting spell, 
And breathes, with swelling heart, her long, 
Her last Farewell. 

As she reached the end, all stage exigency 
and restraint was forgotten, her voice was broken 
by real sobs. As soon as the hush of emotion 
had passed, the audience seemed suddenly to 
awake to the fact that it really was the last time 
they would ever see the marvellous actress, 
whom at one time they had almost idolized. Not 
satisfied with their usual method of expressing 
their feelings, they stood upon the seats, and 
cheered her, waving their hats for several min- 



RETIREMENT, 325 

utes. It appeared to be the wish of the major- 
ity of the audience that the play should conclude 
with this scene, the curtain was therefore drop- 
ped ; but Kembie came forward, and announced 
that, if it was the wish of the house, the play 
should proceed. The audience was divided, and 
the farce of " The Spoilt Child " began, amidst 
loud acclamation from one side and disappoint- 
ment from the other. This continued during 
the whole of the first act, with constant cries of 
" The fifth act ! the fifth act ! " It was found 
impossible to allay popular excitement ; the 
house was all noise and confusion, and the voices 
on the stage were totally inaudible. The cur- 
tain was, therefore, again dropped ; and the au- 
dience, shortly after, quietly dispersed. 

So vanished from her sight that world over 
which, for the space of thirty-five years, she had 
reigned supreme, that world that made her joy 
and sorrow ; before which, in spite of the many 
temptations that had beset her, she could feel 
with pride she had never degraded the supreme 
gift of genius. Amidst her poignant regrets, at 
least she had nothing tragic, nothing irremedi- 
able, to mourn, like so many of her sisters in the 
same profession. Differences of opinion had 
come between her and them, but all that was 
forgotten now in the anguish of " Farewell." 



326 MRS. SID DONS 

She only remembered that first night of triumph, 
its terrors, and its delicious ecstasy ; the weeks, 
months, and years of appreciated happy work, 
dreams fulfilled ; parts she had studied and con- 
ned as a young girl, unconscious of the future in 
store for her, acted with overwhelming success. 
No Arabian Night's Dream of good fortune 
could have been more brilliant or more complete ; 
but, as in all things human, the reaction had set 
in. She had touched such heights, that there 
must necessarily be a reflux. 

She had loved her profession, not only for the 
measure of applause, but for the daily bustle 
and work, which, to a woman of her energetic 
temperament, was enjoyable in itself. 

Rogers tells us that, sitting with her of an 
afternoon, years after the curtain had dropped 
on her farewell performance, she would vividly 
recall every moment of her stage life. "This is 
the time I used to be thinking of going to the 
theatre : first came the pleasure of dressing for 
my part ; and then, the pleasure of acting it ; 
but that is all over now." In her early days 
even, she always confessed that her spirits were 
not equal, and her internal resources were too 
'tew for a life of solitude. 

After long years spent amidst the intoxica- 
tion of applause, to withdraw into the twilight of 



RETIREMENT. 



327 



private life must always be a great trial. The 
nightly stimulus, the mental habit of studying 
for a certain object, the production of evanescent 
emotions and transitory effects, must have a 
deteriorating effect on the noblest disposition. 
Shrewd Miss Berry, in her Journal, dated Feb- 
ruary 24th, 181 1, mentions a visit she paid at 
Westbourne. " Mrs. Siddons received me, as 
she always does, in a manner that flattered my 
internal vanity, for she has the germ of a supe- 
rior nature in her, though burnt up by the long- 
continued brand of popular applause ; " and 
Fanny Kemble writes : " What a price my Aunt 
Siddons has paid for her great celebrity ! Wea- 
riness, vacuity, and utter deadness of spirit. 
The cup has been so highly flavored, that life is 
absolutely without sorrow or sweetness to her 
now, nothing but tasteless insipidity. She has 
stood on a pinnacle till all things have come to 
look flat and dreary ; mere shapeless, colorless, 
level monotony to her. Poor woman ! What a 
fate to be condemned to ! and yet how she has 
been envied as well as admired ! *' 

We doubt if the weariness and vacuity was as 
great as her niece was inclined to think. Ad- 
vanced age and impaired powers always bring a 
certain deadness and indifference; but she had 
mental resources the young girl did not take 



328 MRS. SID DONS. 

into consideration. She kept a large circle of 
firm and attached friends. She was not without 
intellectual pursuits. Although showing no par- 
ticular genius in any other department of life 
but the stage, she had a fine cultivated taste for 
artistic and beautiful things. She employed 
much of her time in modelling, and executed 
many respectable pieces of work. Her childish 
love of Milton revived again now, and after her 
retirement she published a small volume of ex- 
tracts from his poems. Above all, she had the 
support and consolation of a pure, unswerving 
religious faith ; through her chequered life of 
triumph and bereavement, joy and sorrow, Sarah 
Siddons had ever kept that alive in her heart. 
It saved her in many a crisis, and illumined the 
darkened road that lay before her. 

The following verses, written by her at this 
time, are a truer indication of her frame of mind 
than any conclusions drawn from external obser- 
vation by outsiders : — 

Say, what 's the brightest wreath of fame 
But canker'd buds, that, opening, close ; 

Ah ! what 's the world's most pleasing dream 
But broken fragments of repose ? 

Lead me where peace with steady hand 

The mingled cup of life shall hold ; 
Where Time shall smoothly pour his sand, 

And Wisdom turn that sand to gold. 



RETIREMENT. 329 



Then haply at Religion's shrine 
This weary heart its load shall lay, 

Each wish my fatal love resign, 
And passion melt in tears away. 



She had now leisure for journeys abroad and 
the enjoyment of intellectual pleasure outside 
her profession which she had never had before. 
In the autumn of 18 14 she made an excursion 
to Paris in company with her brother John, her 
youngest daughter, Cecilia, and Miss Wilkinson. 
A short interval of peace then reigned, and all 
interested in art flocked from England to see 
the treasures that Napolean had plundered from 
every European capital. The Apollo Belvidere, 
amongst others, had been set up in the statuary 
hall of the Louvre; and Campbell tells us how, 
giving his arm to Mrs. Siddons, they walked 
down the hall towards it, and stood gazing rapt 
in its divine beauty. " I could not forget the 
honor," Campbell tells us, quaintly, "of being 
before him in the company of so august a wor- 
shipper ; and it certainly increased my enjoy- 
ment to see the first interview between the par- 
agon of Art and that of Nature." 

The " paragon of Nature " was evidently 
much struck, and remained standing silently 
gazing for some time ; then she said, solemnly, 
" What a great idea it gives us of God, to think 



330 MRS. SIDDONS. 

that He has made a human being capable of 
fashioning so divine a form ! " 

As they walked round the hall, Campbell tells 
us, he saw every eye fixed upon her. Her 
stately bearing, her noble expression, made a 
sensation, though the crowd evidently did not 
know who she was, as he heard whispers of 
" Who is she ? Is she not an Englishwoman ? " 

Crabb Robinson, in his " Memoirs," also tells 
us that he heard some one say in the Louvre, 
"Mrs. Siddons is below." He instantly left the 
Raphaels and Titians and went in search of her. 
She was walking with her sister, Mrs. Twiss. 
He noticed her grand air and fascinating smile, 
but he was disturbed that so glorious a head 
should have been covered with a small chip hat. 
She knit her brows, also, to look at the. pictures, 
as if her sight were not good ; and he remarked 
a line or two about her mouth, and a little 
coarseness of expression. She remained two 
months in Paris, and we hear of her going to a 
review held by the King. She was seen toiling 
along towards the Champs de Mars, heated and 
flushed, and in clouds of dust ; and a joke is 
made on the subject of her "saving." 

Further suffering was in store for her in the 
death of her son Henry. He died of consump- 
tion, like his sisters. Manager of the Edin- 



RE TIRE ME NT. 3 3 1 

burgh Theatre, and in the prime of life, his loss 
was a great one both to his family and the Edin- 
burgh public. His poor mother wrote : — 

" Westbonrne, 18 15. 
"This third shock has, indeed, sadly shaken 
, me, and, although in the very depths of afflic- 
tion, I agree with you that consolation may be 
found, yet the voice of nature will for a time 
overpower that of reason ; and I cannot but re- 
member ' that such things were, and were most 
dear to me.' 

" I am tolerably well, but have no voice. This 
is entirely nervousness, and fine weather will 
bring it back to me. Write to me, and let me 
receive consolation in a better account of your 
precious health. My brother and Mrs. Kemble 
have been very kind and attentive, as indeed 
they always were in all events of sickness or of 
sorrow. The little that was left of my poor 
sight is almost washed away by tears, so that I 
fear I write scarce legibly. God's will be done ! " 

Later, she complained : — 

"I don't know why, unless that I am older 
and feebler, or that I am now without a profes- 
sion, which forced me out of myself in my former 
afflictions, but the loss of my poor dear Henry 
seems to have laid a heavier hand upon my mind 



332 MRS. SID DONS. 

than any I have sustained. I drive out to re- 
cover my voice and my spirits, and am better 
while abroad ; but I come home and lose them 
both in an hour. I cannot read or do anything 
else but puddle with my clay. I have begun a 
full-length figure of Cecilia ; and this is a re- 
source which fortunately never fails me. Mr.' 
Fitzhugh approves of it, and that is good encour- 
agement. I have little to complain of, except a 
low voice and lower spirits." 

All these letters do not look like the proud, 
hard, self-sufficient woman so often described. 
We see her sorrowing sincerely, but not giving 
way to unreasoning, despairing grief ; recogniz- 
ing that all the brightness and elasticity of life 
had gone, but doing, nobly and practically, what 
she could to help those that were left. 

Before the end of the year she had arranged 
with Mr. James Ballantyne to act ten nights for 
the benefit of her son's family: — 

"A thousand thousand thanks to you my kind 
and good friend for your most delightful and 
gratifying letter. You do me justice in believ- 
ing that whatever conduces to your happiness, 
or that operates against it, must ever be inter- 
esting to me ; and as the happiness and health 
of your excellent and most respectable mother 



RETIREMENT. 333 

is, I know, the first object of Satisfaction which 
this world contains for your duteous mind, I am, 
indeed, most truly happy, for both your sakes, 
to receive so comfortable an account of her. I 
can conceive no blessing comparable to that of 
having such a Son, and such a one was my own 
dear and lamented Henry. This last blow lay, 
indeed, for some time most heavily upon me ; 
but when I recollect that his pure Spirit has 
exchang'd a Sphere of painful and anxious exist- 
ence, with which he was ill-calculated to Strug- 
gle, for the regions of everlasting peace and joy, 
I feel the Selfishness of my Sorrow, and repeat 
those words, which as often as repeated seem to 
tranquilize my mind, ' The Lord gave, and the 
Lord taketh away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord.' I hope my visit to Edinborough will be 
beneficial to my dear Son's family ; at least, it 
will evince the greatest proof of respect for that 
Public on whom they depend, which it is in my 
power to give. I have some doubts whether the 
motives which induce me to return to the Public 
after So long an absence, will Shield me from 
the darts of malignity ; and when I think of 
what I have undertaken, altho' I feel courageous 
as to my intentions, I own myself doubtful and 
weak with respect to the performance of the 



334 MRS - swdons. 

Task which I have undertaken. It is a great 
disadvantage to have been so long disused to 
the exertions I am call'd on to make, but I will 
not Suffer myself to think of it any longer. As 
to the arrangement of the Plays, it must be left 
entirely to Mrs. H. Siddons, whose judgment I 
have always found to be as Strong as her dispo- 
sition is amiable, and I can give her no higher 
praise. She is indeed 'wisest, virtuousest, dis- 
creetest, best, &c.,' but I fear I shall never be 
able to present myself in Mrs. Beverley, who 
Should be not only handsome, but young also. 
Believe me, my truly estimable friend, I look 
forward with the greatest satisfaction to the 
moment of Seeing you again ; in the meantime 
do not exalt me too much ! You Seem to be in 
an error, on the Subject of my engagement, 
which I must rectify. The necessary expenses 
of Clothes, Ornaments, Travelling, &c, are more 
than my limited Income wou'd afford, without a 
chance, at least, of being able to cover these ex- 
penses, which is all I desire ! and therefore I 
am to fulfil my Engagement on my brother's 
Terms." 

In November, therefore, we find her making 
her way by slow stages to Edinburgh. She 
stopped for several days at Kirby Moorside, 



RE TIRE ME NT. 335 

with Sir Ralph and Lady Noel, and Lady Byron. 
In spite of nervousness and fatigue, she de- 
lighted her Edinburgh audiences. She had no 
reason to make a charge against her northern 
friends of unfaithfulness. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



In i 8 17 Mrs. Siddons, anxious, for the sake of 
her daughter Cecilia, to see more society, left 
her country retreat, Westbourne Farm, where so 
many hours of repose snatched from the turmoil 
of her professional life had been passed, and 
took a house in Upper Baker street. It is the 
last house on the east side overlooking the Re- 
gent's Park, and has a small lawn and garden 
behind. 

On the front, over the doorway, is a medallion 
stating that " Here Mrs. Siddons, the actress, 
lived from 1817 to 1831." When the houses in 
Cornwall Terrace were about to be brought close 
to the gate of the park. Mrs. Siddons appealed to 
the Prince Regent, who had ever remained her 
firm and courteous friend. He immediately 
gave orders that her view over the Park should 
not be shut off. The house, which is still un- 
changed in its internal arrangements, is now 
used as the estate office of the Portman prop- 
erty. The room she built out as a studio for 
(336) 



OLD AGE. 337 

modelling is screened off into compartments 
with desks for the transaction of business. That 
is really the only change that has been made. 
It is an old-fashioned, comfortable house, pan- 
elled in dark oak. The approach to the stair- 
case has steps ascending and descending, and 
the stairs themselves twist round corners, off 
which branch unexpected passages, until they 
reach the first floor, where to the right opens 
the dining-room, looking on the little garden, 
and beyond to the Park. There, between the 
Grecian pillars with their honeysuckle pediment, 
once hung the portrait of her brother John as 
Hotspur ; now the space looks desolate and bare. 
Here she lived with her daughter Cecilia and 
Patty Wilkinson, her attached friend and com- 
panion. Some among us are old enough to re- 
member having heard of her pleasant parties 
where all that was intellectual and delightful in 
the London of her day was assembled. There 
she would sometimes, to her intimate friends, 
give recitations of her favorite parts, having by 
this time relinquished doing so in public. Miss 
Edgeworth describes one of these readings : — 

I heard Mrs. Siddons read at her town-house a portion of 

"Henry VIII." I was more struck and delighted than I ever 

was with any reading in my life. This is feebly expressing 

what I felt. I felt that I had never before fully understood, or 

22 



338 MRS. SID DONS. 

sufficiently admired, Shakespeare, or known the full powers of 
the human voice and the English language. Queen Katherine 
was a character peculiarly suited to her time of life and to 
reading. There was nothing that required gesture or vehe- 
mence incompatible with the sitting attitude. The composure 
and dignity, and the sort of suppressed feeling, and touches, 
not bursts of tenderness, of matronly, not youthful tenderness, 
were all favorable to the general effect. I quite forgot to ap- 
plaud — I thought she was what she appeared. The illusion 
was perfect, till it was interrupted by a hint from her daughter 
or niece, I forget which, that Mrs. Siddons would be encour- 
aged by having some demonstration given of our feelings. I 
then expressed my admiration, but the charm was broken. 

Maria Edgeworth seems to have remained 
friends with Mrs. Siddons, but her father, Rich- 
ard Lovell Edgeworth, hopelessly offended her 
the first time he met her : — 

" Madam," he said, " I think I saw you per- 
form Millamant five-and-thirty years ago." 

"Pardon me, Sir." 

" Oh, then it was forty years ago. I recollect 
it." 

" You will excuse me, Sir, I never played Mil- 
lamant." 

"Oh, but I recollect it." 

" I think," she said, stiffly turning to Rogers, 
" it is time for me to change my place," and ris- 
ing with much haughtiness she moved away. 

Many amusing stories were current of the dra- 
matic manner which she imported into daily life. 



OLD AGE. 339 

Her question, in the tragic tones of Lady Mac- 
beth, to the overawed draper as she bought a 
piece of colored print, " Will it wash ? " The 
solemn reply to the Scotch provost, " Beef can- 
not be too salt for me, my Lord ; " and " I asked 
for water, Boy ; you've brought me beer." Lord 
Beaconsfield told a story of his father, Isaac 
Disraeli, returning home after a visit to London, 
and declaring that the event that had made most 
impression on him was hearing Mrs. Siddons 
say, " The Ripstone Pippin is the finest apple 
in the world." Moore says he remembered how 
proud he was of going to Lady Mount Edg- 
cumbe's suppers after the opera. It was at one 
of these, sitting between Mrs. Siddons and Lady 
Castlereagh, he heard for the first time the voice 
of the former (never having met her before) 
transferred to the ordinary things of the world, 
and the solemn words in her most tragic tone, 
" I do love ale dearly." Sidney Smith also de- 
scribes her as "stabbing the potatoes ;" and it 
is said that on hearing of the sudden death of an 
acquaintance, who had been " found dead in his 
bureau," she understood the latter word to mean 
a piece of furniture, and exclaimed, " Poor man ! 
How gat he there ? " 

She was, as a rule, perfectly impervious to 
external influences, ignoring them in her self- 



340 MRS. SIDDONS. 

abstraction. She lived through the most mar- 
vellous period of English and European history, 
yet no incident seems to have made an impres- 
sion on her mode of thought or life. She never 
entered into political interests, though the friend 
of Fox, Burke, and Sheridan. Her dramatic 
world of romance was all-sufficient for her. Hers 
was not a ready intelligence ; she required time 
for everything, time to comprehend, time to 
speak ; there was nothing superficial about her, 
no vivacity of manner. To petty gossip she 
could not condescend, and evil-speaking she ab- 
horred. She cared not to shine in general con- 
versation. Ask her her opinion, she could not 
give it until she had studied every side of the 
subject ; then you might trust to it without ap- 
peal. This slowness of mental action led to a 
regal, stately, and majestic bearing, that gradu- 
ally overlaid her genius to its detriment. As 
early as 1817, Fanny Burney describes her as — 

The heroine of a tragedy, sublime, elevated and solemn, in 
face and person truly noble and commanding, in manners quiet 
and stiff, in voice deep and dragging, and in conversation for- 
mal, sententious, calm, and dry. I expected her to have been 
a?l that is interesting ; the delicacy and sweetness with which 
s-he seizes every opportunity to strike and to captivate upon 
the stage had persuaded me that her mind was formed with 
that peculiar susceptibility which, in different modes, must 
give equal powers to attract and delight in common life. But 



OLD AGE. 341 

I was very much mistaken. As a stranger I must have admired 
her noble appearance and beautiful countenance, and have re- 
gretted that nothing in her conversation kept pace with their 
promise. 

We read in 1801 of Campbell meeting her 
walking on the banks of Paddington Canal when 
she was living at Westbourne, and in a perfect 
agony of fear " whipping on his great-coat," and 
preparing himself for an interview with the 
"great woman." 

Washington Irving gives a characteristic 
sketch of her : — 

It was a rare gratification to see the Queen of Tragedy thus 
out of her robes. Yet her manner, even at the social board, 
still partakes of the state and gravity of tragedy. Not that 
there is an unwillingness to unbend, but that there is a diffi- 
culty in throwing aside the solemnity of long-acquired habit. 
She reminded me of Walter Scott's knights, "who carved the 
meat with their gloves of steel, and drank the red wine through 
their helmets barred." There was, however, entirely the dis- 
position to be gracious, and to play her part like herself in 
conversation. She, therefore, exchanged anecdote and inci- 
dent, in the course of which she detailed her feelings and re- 
flections while wandering among the sublime and romantic 
scenery of North Wales, and on the summit of Penmaenmawr. 
As she did this her eye kindled and her features beamed, and 
in her countenance, which is indeed a volume where one may 
read strange matters, you might trace the varying emotions of 
her soul. I was surprised to find her face, even at the near 
approach of sitting by her side, absolutely handsome, and 
unmarked with any of those wrinkles which generally attend 
advanced life. Her form is at present becoming unwieldy, 
but not shapeless, and is full of dignity. Her gestures and 



342 MRS. SID DONS. 

movements are eminently graceful. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell 
say that I was quite fortunate, and might flatter myself on her 
being so conversible, for that she is very apt to be on the re- 
serve toward strangers. 

Mr. and Mrs. Campbell had every reason to 
say so, for only that very year she proposed din- 
ing with them one day, requesting, as she always 
did, that it was only to be a family party. About 
noon Washington Irving' s brother and a friend, 
who had brought letters of introduction from Sir 
Walter Scott, arrived. During their visit a ser- 
vant unfortunately came into the room and dis- 
closed the fact that Mrs. Siddons was dining 
there. Immediately the Americans made up 
their minds to stay and see her. Campbell told 
them how annoyed Mrs. Siddons would be at 
meeting strangers ; they were not to be gain- 
said : — 

When the carriage approached the house, Campbell goes on, 
I went out to conduct her over a short pathway on the com- 
mon, as well as to prepare her for a sight of the strangers. It 
was the only time, during a friendly acquaintance of so many 
vears, that I ever saw a cloud upon her brow. She received 
my apology very coldly, and walked into my house with tragic 
dignity. At first she kept the gentlemen of the New World at 
a transatlantic distance; and they made the matter worse, as I 
thought, for a time, by the most extravagant flattery. But my 
Columbian friends had more address than I supposed, and they 
told her so many interesting anecdotes about their native stage 
and the enthusiasm of their countrymen respecting herself that 
she grew frank and agreeable, and shook hards with both of 
them at parting. 



OLD AGE. 343 

Many were the honors heaped on her during 
these last years. She received a formal invita- 
tion to visit the Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. Her daughter writes to Miss Wilkin- 
son, expressing their delight with the visit : — 

I over and over wished for you, who would have enjoyed as 
much as I did the attention and admiration shown to our Dar- 
ling. We had sights to see, colleges and libraries to examine, 
and at every one of them there was a principal inhabitant, 
eager to show and proud to entertain Mrs. Siddons. In the 
public library, my mother received the honor of an address from 
Professor Clarke, who presented her with a handsome Bible 
from the Stereotype press. After which she read to almost all 
the members of the University at present there the trial scene 
in the "Merchant of Venice," and more finely she never did it 
in her life. Every one was, or seemed to be, enchanted and 
enthusiastic. 

After her retirement from the stage, she gave 
public readings at the Argyll Rooms in London. 
The arrangements were most simple. A read- 
ing-desk with lights, on which lay her book, a 
quarto volume, printed in large letters. When 
her memory failed her, she assisted her sight by 
spectacles, which in the intervals she handled 
and used so gracefully, that it was impossible to 
wish her without them. A large red screen 
formed an harmonious background to her white 
dress, and classically-shaped head, round which 
her dark hair was rolled in loose coils. All her 
former dignity and grace seemed to return in 



344 MRS - SID DONS. 

these readings. The effect she produced was 
marvellous, considering it was without the aid of 
stage illusion or scenery. 

The attention shown her by the Royal Fam- 
ily was a source of much gratification. Her 
letters written, after a visit to Windsor, in Jan- 
uary 1 8 13, are almost girlish in their emphasis 
and expressions of delight. 

She was in the middle of dressing to go and 
dine at Mrs. Darner's, when an especial messen- 
ger arrived in the dusk, from Lady Stewart, inti- 
mating the Queen's desires. Everything was 
rose color. "The charming accomplished Prin- 
cesses, so sweetly and graciously acknowledge 
the amusement I was so happy as to afford them. 
To have been able to amuse a little a few of the 
heavy mournful hours, the weight of which those 
royal amiable sufferers must so often feel, has 
been to me the greatest, the proudest gratifica- 
tion." 

A magnificent gold chain, with a cross of 
many colored jewels, was presented to her by 
the Queen, and a " silken quilt for my bed, 
which she sewed with her own hands." 

On the 9th of June 18 19, when past sixty, 
Mrs. Siddons was induced to appear for the ben- 
efit of her brother, Charles Kemble, at Covent 
Garden. She had done so before, at the com- 



OLD AGE. 345 

mand of the Princess Charlotte, who at the last 
moment had been unable to come. All the best 
critics were of opinion it was a mistake. The 
part chosen, too, Lady Randolph, was injudi- 
cious, with its lengthy speeches and continual 
movement. The audience certainly gave three 
rounds of applause, in recognition of her perso'nal 
character, when Young Norval asked : 

But did my sire surpass the rest of men 
As thou excellest all of woman kind ? 

But this was a poor substitute for the breathless 
thrill, the agony of emotion, with which she 
shook her audience in the old days. 

Unfortunately for us and them, players are 
not immortal. Health, strength, beauty, voice, 
fail them, and without these adventitious aids 
genius is of no avail on the stage. Any loss of 
reputation to an actress like Mrs. Siddons was a 
loss to the world ; these reappearances, when 
age and infirmity had weakened her powers, 
were much to be deplored. Let us, however, 
turn from this subject to more pleasant ones ; 
and there were so many pleasant incidents and 
so few mistakes in Mrs. Siddons' dignified and 
decorous life, that we can afford to be lenient. 

In Fanny Kemble's " Record of a Girlhood," 
we get glimpses of Aunt Siddons, stately and 



346 MRS. SID DONS. 

gentle, surrounded by children and grandchil- 
dren. 

You know we were to spend Christmas Eve at my Aunt 
Siddons' ; we had a delightful evening, and I was very happy. 
My aunt came down from the drawing-room (for we danced in 
the dining-room on the ground-floor) and sat among us, and 
you cannot think how nice and pretty it was to see her sur- 
rounded by her clan, more than three dozen strong ; some of 
them so handsome, and many with a striking likeness to her- 
self, either in feature or expression. Mrs. Harry and Cecy 
danced with us, and we enjoyed ourselves very much. 

The younger sons of her son George Siddons 
(who had obtained a Government post at Cal- 
cutta), were being educated with their sisters in 
England, and always spent their holidays with 
their grandmother, Mrs. Siddons. The young- 
est of these three school-boys was the father of 
the beautiful Mrs. Scott Siddons of the present 
day. 

Mrs. Siddons was very fond of children. 
Campbell tells a story of his once leaving his lit- 
tle boy, aged six, with her, when she was stop- 
ping in Paris. When he returned, he found 
them both in animated conversation. She had 
been amusing him with all sorts of stories, 
which she told admirably. The evening before 
she had been to a fashionable party and offended 
every one by the austerity of her manners. 

Her letters about her grandchildren are full of 



OLD AGE. 347 

simple grandmotherly love, naturally expressed. 
She wrote from Broadstairs in 1806 : — 

"My dear Harry, I have very great pleasure 
in telling you that your dear little ones are quite 
well. The bathing agrees with them perfectly. 
They are exceedingly improved in looks and 
appetite, though their stomachs turn a little, 
poor dears, at the sight of the machines ; but, 
indeed, upon the whole, the dipping is pretty 
well got over, and they look so beautiful after it, 
it would do your heart good to see them. I 
assure you they are the belles of Broadstairs. 
Their nurse is very good-humored to them. She 
is certainly not a beauty, but they like her as 
well as if she were a Venus. Never were little 
souls so easily managed, or so little troublesome." 

The great actress would boast with more pride 
of the effect she produced on a little girl during 
the performance of " Jane Shore," than of her 
greatest triumphs. In the last scenes of the 
play, when the unfortunate heroine, destitute 
and starving, exclaims in an agony of suffering, 
" I have not tasted bread for three days," a little 
voice was heard, broken by sobs, exclaiming, 
M Madam, madam ! do take my orange, if you 
please ; " and the audience and the actress be- 
held, in one of the stage boxes, a little girl hold- 
ing her out an orange. 



348 MRS. SIDDONS. 

A lady, now alive, recalls to mind, when she 
was very young, being taken to pay a visit to 
"the great Mrs. Siddons." She long after re- 
membered those wonderful eyes, and particularly 
the long silky eyelashes, which she noticed were 
of extraordinary length, and curled upwards in a 
beautiful curve. On being told that the child 
was obliged to go away to the country, and would 
have no opportunity of hearing her on the stage, 
she kindly said she would recite for her, and did 
so there and then. 

One of her grandchildren has described the 
interest of her visits to her. Frequently her 
grandmother would read to them, giving them 
the choice of the play. One evening in particu- 
lar she recalled the reading of " Othello." " It 
was a stormy night, and the thunder was heard 
occasionally, and she so grand and impressive ; 
her look ! her voice, her magnificent eyes, still 
clear and brilliant. It was real reading, not dec- 
lamation, and yet the effect," she says, "was 
beyond anything I could conceive of the finest 
acting." This was only the winter before her 
death. 

We find her now suffering all the fluctuations 
in spirits old age is subject to, sometimes com- 
plaining of feebleness and suffering, at others 
returning to all the girlish playfulness of her 



OLD AGE. 349 

younger days. On July 12th, 1819, she writes 
to her friend Mrs. Fitzhugh : — 

" Well, my dear friend, though I am not of 
rank and condition to be myself at the Prince's 
ball, my fine clothes, at any rate, will have that 

honor. Lady B has borrowed my Lady 

Macbeth's finest banquet dress, and I wish her 
ladyship joy in wearing it, for I found the weight 
of it almost too much for endurance for half an 
hour. How will she be able to carry it for such a 
length of time ? But young and old are expected 
to appear, upon that 'high solemnity' in splendid 
and fanciful apparel, and many of these beauties 

will appear in my stage finery. Lady C at 

first intended to present herself (as she said 
very drolly) as a vestal virgin, but has now de- 
cided upon the dress of a fair Circassian. I 
should like to see this gorgeous assembly, and I 
have some thoughts of walking in in the last 
dress of Lady Macbeth, and swear I came there 
in my sleep. But enough of this nonsense." 

Her brother John, sharer of most of her trials 
and triumphs, settled at Lausanne towards the 
end of his life. The loss of his society was a 
sad deprivation, and in 1821 she paid him a visit. 
Her daughter Cecilia, in a letter home, described 
the delights of the villa the Kembles lived in, 
and the beauty of the surrounding scenery. 



350 MRS. SIDDONS. 

Mrs. Siddons meditated an expedition to Cha- 
mounix but for some reason it was given up, and 
thev went to Berne ; the weather was wet, how- 
ever, and they were obliged to return sooner 
than they expected. They ate chamois, crossed 
a lake, mounted a glacier with two men, cutting 
steps in the ice with a hatchet, and did all that 
was required of them as travellers. " My mother 
bore all the fatigues much more wonderfully 
than any of us," the letter ends. 

In spite of her wonderful energy, old age was 
creeping on her apace. Erysipelas, which was 
ultimately fatal, frequently attacked her with a 
burning soreness in her mouth, or with head- 
aches that were equally painful. She had to 
submit to that worst penalty of advancing years, 
the death of friends ; those of Mrs. Darner and 
Mrs. Piozzi were a great loss. In February 
1823, John Kemble died at Lausanne. On the 
9th he dined out, and it was remarked that he 
was in very good spirits ; the next evening a 
few friends dropped in for a rubber of whist. 
The following Sunday he was out in his garden ; 
but while he was sitting reading the paper, it fell 
from his hands. His wife rushed to him ; he 
only faltered a few words, begging her not to be 
alarmed. The doctor was sent for, but one 



OLD AGE. 351 

stroke after another seized him, and he died on 
the 20th. This was a sad blow to Mrs. Siddons. 

In her seventy-third year she wrote to Mrs. 
Fitzhugh from Cobham Hall, the seat of Lord 
Darnley : — ■ 

" I have brought myself to see whether change 
of scene, and the cordial kindness of my noble 
host and hostess, will not at least do something 
to divert my torment. But real evils will not 
give way to such applications, gratifying though 
they may be. I have had the honor, however, 
of conversing with Prince Leopold ; he is a very 
agreeable and sensible converser, and Her Royal 
Highness the Duchess of Kent seems to justify 
all the opinions of her amiability. I have begun 
to recover the loss of my dear little girls, 
George's daughters. How I long to hear they 
are safe in the arms of their anxious parents. In 
this magnificent place, I assure you, my seventy- 
second birthday was celebrated with the most 
gratifying and flattering cordiality. We had 
music and Shakespeare, which Lord Darnley 
has at his finger's ends. I should have enjoyed 
the party more if it had not been so large ; but 
twenty-three people at dinner is rather too much 
of a good thing. . . . Talking of the arts, I can- 
not help thinking with sorrow of the statue of 
my poor brother. It is an absolute libel on his 



352 MRS. SID DONS. 

noble person and air. I should like to pound it 
into dust, and scatter it to the winds. 

" Yours, q c »» 

A statue of the great actress, by Chantry, was 
put up later, by Macready, beside her brother's 
in Westminster Abbey. 

In April 183 1 she was attacked with the ill- 
ness that was to prove fatal. The appearance 
of the erysipelas in one of her ancles alarmed 
the doctor, but she got better, and before the 
end of the month felt so far recovered, that she 
laughingly told him that he need not come to 
see her any more, for "she had health to sell." 

Unfortunately, she ventured out driving soon 
afterwards, the day was cold, and a chill seemed 
to have developed the erysipelas internally. On 
the 31st May she was seized with sickness and 
ague, and in the course of the evening both her 
legs were attacked with erysipelatous inflamma- 
tion. This increased during the night, and was 
accompanied by much fever. In the course of 
the following day there was a consultation of 
doctors. They pronounced the case hopeless, 
mortification supervened, and about nine on the 
morning of the 8th June she expired, after a 
week of acute suffering. 

On the 15 th June she was buried in the New 



OLD AGE. 353 

Ground of Paddington church, followed to the 
grave by her brother Charles Kemble, two sons 
of Henry Siddons, and many others. Alas ! of 
her own immediate family few were left, and her 
eldest son was in India. In the procession were 
eleven mourning coaches, with the performers 
of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Covent 
Garden. When the burial service had been read, 
a young woman, Campbell tells us, knelt down 
beside the coffin with demonstrations of the 
wildest grief. She came veiled, and her name 
was never discovered. 

Why go into the items of the will Mrs. Sid- 
dons left, and the articles she assigned to her 
heirs ? To us she has bequeathed the memory 
of one of the greatest dramatic artists that ever 
graced our stage, and of one of the noblest of 
the long list of noble women enrolled in the 
annals of our country. ^Time goes on whirling 
away all memories in its relentless rush. A new 
generation is ever ready to depreciate the enthu- 
siasms of their grandfathers, and ours is incredu- 
lous when told of the powers of a Garrick or a 
Siddons. 

It was with a feeling of pain that, while stand- 
ing the other day by the great actress's grave 
where it lies lonely and untended in Paddington 
churchyard, we heard that our cousins across 
23 



354 AIRS - SID DONS. 

the Atlantic set more store on the memory of 
Sarah Siddons than we do. Miss Mary Ander- 
son, the custodian told us, whenever she is in 
London, comes up on Sunday afternoons, with 
parties of her countrymen, to lay fresh flowers 
on the grave, and has undertaken, at her own 
expense, to execute all necessary repairs to the 
railings and tombstone. Let us, before it is too 
late, anticipate this high-minded and generous 
offer. 



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By Mrs. F. FENWICK MILLER. 

i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



" The almost uniform excellence of the ' Famous Women ' series is well sus- 
tained in Mrs. Fen wick Miller's life of Harriet Martineau, the latest addition to 
this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to rank it as the best of 
the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and Mrs. Miller has done her work 
admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable woman, in a century that has not 
been deficient in notable characters. Her native genius, and her perseverance in 
developing it ; her trials and afflictions, and the determination with which she rose 
superior to them ; her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important 
place which her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her day, 
— all combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional interest. . . . With 
the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet Martineau was the greatest of 
English women. She was a poet and a novelist, but not as such did she make 
good her title to distinction. Much more noteworthy were her achievements in 
other lines of thought, not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a 
political economist, a theologian, a journalist, and a historian. . . . But to attempt 
a mere outline of her life and works is out of the question in our limited space. 
Her biography should be read by all in search of entertainment." — Professor 
IVoods in Saturday Mirror. 

"The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent biog- 
raphies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by the public con- 
tradiction of more or less important points in the relation by the living friends of the 
dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller's chief concerns in writing this life seems to 
have been to redeem the character of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of 
hardness and unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the 
reader. . . . Mrs. Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an alto- 
gether different side to her character, — a home-loving, neighborly, bright-natured, 
tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly woman, as well as the clear 
thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and comprehensive writer whom we already 
knew." — The Index. 

"Already ten volumes in this library are published; namely, George Eliot, 
Emily Bronte, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria Edgeworth, 
Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the present 
volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean order ! Miss M. will 
rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or grace. At home or abroad, 
in public or private. She was noble and true, and her life stands confessed a suc- 
cess. True, she was literary, but she was a home lover and home builder. She 
never lost the higher aims and ends of life, no matrer how flattering her success. 
This whole series ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such 
biography would prove highly beneficial." — Troy Telegram. 



Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be 
viailed, post-paid, on receipt of price. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 



jfamous SSHomen Series. 



MARY * WOLLSTONECRAFT. 

BY 

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. 

One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



" So far as it has been published, and it has now reached its ninth volume, the 
Famous Women Series is rather better on the whole than the English Men of 
Letters Series. One had but to recall the names and characteristics of some 
of the women with whom it deals, — literary women, like Maria Edgeworth, 
Margaret Fuller, Mary Lamb, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, and George Sand ; 
women of the world (not to mention the other parties in that well-known Scrip- 
tural firm), like the naughty but fascinating Countess of Albany ; and women of 
philanthropy, of which the only example given here so far is Mrs. Elizabeth 
Fry, — one has but to compare the intellectual qualities of the majority of English 
men of letters to perceive that the former are the most difficult to handle, and 
that a series of which they are the heroines is, if successful, a remarkable col- 
lection of biographies. We thought so as we read Miss Blind's study of George 
Sand, and Vernon Lee's study of the Countess of Albany, and we think so now 
that we have read Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Pennell's study of Mary Wollstone- 
craft, who, with all her faults, was an honor to her sex. She was not so consid- 
ered while she lived, except by those who knew her well, nor for years after her 
death ; but she is so considered now, even by the granddaughters of the good 
ladies who so bitterly condemned her when the century was new. She was 
notable for the sacrifices that she made for her worthless father and her weak, 
inefficient sisters, for her dogged persistence and untiring industry, and for her 
independence and her courage. The soul of goodness was in her, though she 
would be herself and go on her own way ; and if she loved not wisely, according 
to the world's creed, she loved too well for her own happiness, and paid the 
penalty of suffering. What she might have been if she had not met Capt. 
Gilbert Imlay, who was a scoundrel, and William Godwin, who was a philosopher, 
can only be conjectured. She was a force in literature and in the enfranchise- 
ment of her sisterhood, and as such was worthy of the remembrance which she 
will long retain through Mrs. Pennell's able memoir." — ./?. H. Stoddard, in the 
Mail and Express. 



Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of 
price by the publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, 

Boston 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES. 

THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY. 

BY VERNON LEE. 
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



" It is no disparagement to the many excellent previous sketches to say that 
' The Countess of Albany,' by Vernon Lee, is decidedly the cleverest of the series 
of biographies of ' Famous Women,' published in this country by Roberts Brothers, 
Boston. In the present instance there is a freer subject, a little farther removed 
from contemporary events, and sufficiently out of the way of prejudice to admit of 
a lucid handling. Moreover, there is a trained hand at the work, and a mind 
not only familiar with and in sympathy with the character under discussion, but 
also at home with the ruling forces of the eighteenth century, which were the forces 
that made the Countess of Albany what she was. The biography is really dual, trac- 
ing the life of Alfieri, for twenty-five years the heart and soul companion of the 
Countess, quite as carefully as it traces that of the fixed subject of the sketch." — 
Philadelphia Times. 

"To be unable altogether to acquiesce in Vernon Lee's portrait of Louise of 
Stolberg does not militate against our sense of the excellence of her work. Her 
pictures of eighteenth-century Italy are definite and brilliant. They are instinct 
with a quality that is akin to magic." — London Academy. 

" In the records of famous women preserved in the interesting series which 
has been devoted to such noble characters as Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Fry, and 
George Eliot, the life of the Countess of Albany holds a unique place. Louise of 
Albiny, or Louise R., as she liked to sign herself, possessed a character famed, 
not for domestic virtues, nor even for peculiar wisdom and creative power, but 
rather notorious for an easy-going indifference to conventionality and a worldly 
wisdom and cynicism. Her life, which is a singular exponent of the false ideas 
prevalent upon the subject of love and marriage in the eighteenth century, is told 
by Vernon Lee in a vivid and discriminating manner. The biography is one of 
the most fascinating, if the most sorrowful, of the series." — Boston Journal. 

" She is the first really historical character who has appeared on the literary 
horizon of this particular series, her predecessors having been limited to purely 
literary women. This brilliant little biography is strongly written. Unlike pre- 
ceding writers — German, French, and English — on the same subject, the author 
does not hastily pass over the details of the Platonic relations that existed between 
the Countess and the celebrated Italian poet 'Alfieri.' In this biography the 
details of that passionate friendship are given with a fidelity to truth, and a knowl- 
edge of its nature, that is based upon the strictest and most conscientious inves- 
tigation, and access to means heretofore unattainable to other biographers. The 
history of this friendship is not only exceedingly interesting, but it presents a 
fascinating psychological study to those who are interested in the metaphysical 
aspect of human nature. The book is almost as much of a biography of ' Alfieri ' 
as it is of the wife of the Pretender, who expected to become the Queen of Eng- 
land."— Hartford Times. 

Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of 
the price, by the publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. Bostox. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 



jFamou* SEomen Series* 



ELIZABETH FRY 

By Mrs. E. R. PITMAN. 

One vol. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 



" In the records of famous women there are few more noble examples of 
Christian womanhood and philanthropic enthusiasm than the life of Elizabeth 
Fry presents. Her character was beautifully rounded and complete, and if she 
had not won fame through her public benefactions, she would have been no less 
esteemed and remembered by all who knew her because of her domestic virtues, 
her sweet womanly charms, and the wisdom, purity, and love which marked her 
conduct as wife, mother, and friend. She came of that sound old Quaker stock 
which has bred so many eminent men and women. The time came when her 
home functions could no longer satisfy the yearnings of a heart filled with the 
tenderest pity for all who suffered ; and her work was not far to seek. The prisons 
of England, nay, of all Europe, were in a deplorable condition. In Newgate, 
dirt, disease, starvation, depravity, drunkenness, &c, prevailed. All who sur- 
veyed the situation regarded it as hopeless ; all but Mrs. Fry. She saw here the 
opening she had been awaiting. Into this seething mass she bravely entered, 
Bible in hand, and love and pity in her eyes and upon her lips. If any one 
should ask which of all the famous women recorded in this series did the most 
practical good in her day and generation, the answer must be, Elizabeth Fry." — 
New York Tribune. 

" Mrs. Pitman has written a very interesting and appreciative sketch of the 
life, character, and eminent services in the causes of humanity of one of Eng- 
land's most famous philanthropists. She was known as the prison philanthropist, 
and probably no laborer in the cause of prison reform ever won a larger share of 
success, and certainly none ever received a larger meed of reverential love. No 
one can read this volume without feelings of admiration for the noble woman who 
devoted her life to befriend sinful and suffering humanity." — Chicago Evening 
Journal. 

" The story of her splendid and successful philanthropy is admirably told by 
her biographer, and every reader should find in the tale a breath of inspiration. 
Not every woman can become an Elizabeth Fry, but no one can fail to be im- 
pressed with the thought that no woman, however great her talent and ambition, 
can fail to find opportunity to do a noble work in life without neglecting her own 
feminine duties, without ceasing to dignify all the distinctive virtues of her sex» 
without fretting and crying aloud over the restrictions placed on woman's field of 
work." — Eclectic Monthly. 

Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be 
sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



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